[1] Although ostensibly part of the Home Office, its wider remit included the domestic and external surveillance of foreign people of interest.
[2][3] The Alien Office was part of the wider Government machinery of national security and intelligence, and its work needs to be seen in the context of this and of other legislation passed at the time, such as the Westminster Police Bill in 1792 (which created a system of stipendiary magistrates as part of an attempt to coordinate policing).
Elizabeth Sparrow describes it as "the first comprehensive British secret service in the modern sense, [and] therefore the forerunner of not only Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.)
[4] The most famous scalp claimed by the Alien Office under the new regulations was arguably that of the French diplomat and intriguer, Talleyrand.
This repealed the previous legislation and created a theoretical system of in-country registration that, although it would quickly fall into disuse, remained on the statute book until the Aliens Act 1905.