RELATIONS OF THE AMERICAN PACER TO THE TROTTER. 173 



adopted in all the colonies against permitting immature entire 

 colts and stallions under size to wander where they pleased. It 

 is doubtful whether these regulations were any more effective 

 than those of Henry VIII., for while there was some increase, it 

 was hardly perceptible until after the close of the colonial days. 

 The real increase did not commence till the farmers had provided 

 themselves with facilities for keeping their breeding stock at 

 home. 



It is very evident from the statistics of size and gait, as given 

 in the chapters referred to above, that our forefathers wisely 

 selected the most compact, strong and hardy animals they could 

 find in England as the type best adapted to fight their way 

 against the hardships of a life in the wilderness of the new world. 

 There have been some attempts, wholly fanciful and baseless, to 

 trace importations from other countries, outside of those men- 

 tioned above, but all such attempts have proven wholly imaginary 

 and worse than futile. In less than twenty years after the New 

 England colonies received their first supply they commenced 

 shipping horses by the cargo to Barbadoes and other West India 

 Islands. This trade was cultivated, extended to all the islands, 

 and continued during the remainder of the seventeenth and 

 practically the whole of the eighteenth century. The pacers of 

 the American colonies were exceedingly popular and sought after 

 by the Spanish as well as the Dutch and English islands. In- 

 deed, the planters of Cuba alone carried away at high prices 

 nearly all the pacers that New England could produce. They 

 knew nothing about pacers for the saddle until they had tried 

 them and then they would have nothing else. These continuous 

 raids of the Spaniards of the West Indies upon the pacers of 

 New England, and Ehode Island especially, has been assigned, 

 by the local historians of that State as one of the principal 

 causes of the decadence and practically final disappearance of the 

 Narragansett pacer from the seat of his triumphs and his fame. 

 It is just to remark here, in passing, that if there had been pacers 

 among the horses of Spain, the Spanish dependencies would have 

 secured their supplies from the mother country and not have 

 come to Rhode Island and paid fabulous prices for them. 



As all the pacing traditions of this country to-day point to 

 the horses of Narragansett Bay as the source from which our 

 modern pacers have derived their speed, we must give some at- 

 tention to the various theories that have been advanced as to the 



