128 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



monwealth, that most business-like Government carefully 

 surveyed the forest, and determined to make allotments 

 to the large body of persons who enjoyed rights of com- 

 mon over it, and thus buying out their interest, to reduce 

 the residue of the tract to the several and complete owner- 

 ship of the State. A commission was issued, which actu- 

 ally set out the allotments to be enjoyed by the several 

 parishes extending into the forest, and even went so far 

 as to determine in what proportions the several inhabi- 

 tants of each parish should enjoy their allotment. 



" Whether any inclosures were actually made is doubt- 

 ful. The forest is scored by banks and ditches in all 

 directions, and it is possible that the allotments of the 

 Parliamentary commissioners may have been thus de- 

 fined, and even that individuals here and there may have 

 attempted a complete appropriation. However, the res- 

 toration intervened before any general inclosnre could 

 be consummated, and the elaborate preparations for cut- 

 ting up the forest came to naught. They do not appear 

 to have been popular with the inhabitants, for we find no 

 attempt on their part to hold inclosures, nor any petition 

 or memorial to the Crown to give effect to what had been 

 projected. But Charles II. wanted money, and there were 

 not lacking (as we have said) speculative persons who were 

 ready to pay considerable sums, and to take all the expense 

 and trouble of legitimate proceedings for an inclosure of 

 the hands of the Crown, if they could obtain a grant 

 of the royal interest in the forest, and an expression of 

 the royal wish that the forest should, as it was called, be 

 ' improved.' Their procedure was marked by the utmost 

 simplicity. They inclosed large tracts, buying off one or 

 two of the principal land owners of the district by giving 

 them a share in the plunder ; and if remonstrance or 

 resistance were made, complained that the inhabitants 

 were frowardly conspiring together to thwart the wishes 

 of the Sovereign to benefit his country by making its 

 wastes productive. The same process took place else- 

 where, notably in the case of Malvern Chase. The Com- 



