concept of the metropolis as a unified district and a central command overseeing many policing divisions was completely new. In addition to the reform of the structure of the London policing forces, the bill included clauses aimed at the prevention of crime, such as giving police preventive powers to search and arrested on suspicion. An example is when they arrest Colonel Edward Despard, for provoking the Despard Plot. In 1792, Parliament did pass legislation that introduced some reform to the system, The Middlesex Justices Act which contained two elements of the 1785 bill: one was the establishment of public offices where magistrates monopolized the administration of criminal law throughout the metropolis, and the other was the increase in the powers of the police. The Act was mainly based on the model presented by the Bow Street office and on Fielding's conception of the magistrate and of how to deal with crime, therefore leading to the replication of the Bow Street structure throughout London. Under the new legislation, the Bow Street office maintained a privileged position among the other offices of the metropolis, due to the closer relationship of its magistrates with the Home Office and to the financial resources at their disposal, regulated by an informal agreement with the Treasury rather than by legislation, therefore increasing the policing resources available. This made it possible for the government to use the Runners and the patrolmen as they thought necessary, increasing their range of investigation, that now included more engagement with threats to national security and social disorder, as can be seen by the fewer and fewer accounts of Runners giving evidence in trials at the Old Bailey. The Runners' last years (1815–1839) In the new century, crime rates diminished in the metropolis, therefore the contribution of the Runners to the policing of property offences decreased considerably; they continued to investigate offences in London, but not as actively as they had before. Their incomes from London crime diminished as the position that Bow Street had once held in the commitment of felons to trial continued to erode with the expansion of the patrol and the creation of new police offices from 1792. By the early 1820s, Bow Street was responsible for just over 10% of the accused felons being committed to trial at the Old Bailey. After 1815, the Runners' most regular employment was to respond to help requests from prosecutors outside