44 The New Forest . its History and its Scenery. 



Manwood, who wrote towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, 

 had, long before this, predicted what must happen, and the 

 straits to which the English navy, as we know was the case, 

 would be reduced. In Charles I.'s time the Forests were in a 

 shameful condition. The keepers were in arrears of wages, and 

 paid themselves out of the timber.* The consequences soon 

 came. There was nothing left but wind-shaken and decayed 

 trees in the New Forest, quite unfit for building ships, t 

 Charles II., however, in 1669, probably influenced by Evelyn's 

 Silva, which appeared four years before, and had given a great 

 impulse, throughout England, to planting, enclosed three 

 hundred acres as a nursery for young oaks. But the waste and 

 devastation still continued. At last, William III. legislated 

 on the subject, for, to use the words of the Act, " the Forest 

 was in danger of being destroyed;"! and power was given to 

 plant six thousand acres. In 1703 came the great hurricane, 

 which Evelyn so deplores, uprooting some four thousand of the 

 best oaks. 



an unfit way to gratify this petitioner, for under pretence of such Moorefall 

 trees much waste is often committed.' Record Office. Domestic Series, 

 No. 34, April 2nd, 16Gl,f. 14. Hence the reason of Charles's warrant in 

 the case of Winefred Wells, as he knew that the Lord Treasurer was so 

 strongly opposed to any such grants 



* See the report of Peter Pett, one of the King's master shipwrights, 

 "Touching the fforests of Shottover and Stowood." Record Office 

 Domestic Series, No. 216, f. 56 i. May 10th, 1632. The New Forest, 

 however, seems from this report to have been much better in this respect. 



t See " Necessarie Remembrances concerning the preservation of timber, 

 &c."' Record Office Domestic Series Charles I., No. 229, f. 114, 

 Without date, but some time in 1632. 



t 9th and 10th of William III , chap xxxvi , 1693 An abstract of the 

 Act may be found in the Journals of the Housa of Commons, vol. xliv., 

 appendix, pp. 576-578. 



44 



