226 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



general, the masters of the woods, the receivers and the 

 auditors in one court, they would have been a check upon 

 one another,and if either of these courts had been continued, 

 and had acted in conjunction with the forest officers as was 

 intended, great profit to the country would have been the 

 result. But the last of these courts being established only 

 by letters patent, it had perhaps on that account the less 

 weight ; and the Justices in Eyre, who had usually but 

 improperly taken upon themselves to make wood sales, 

 and who happened during that and the succeeding reign 

 to be men of great power, contracted the measures of the 

 Court of Augmentations, and made great waste of the 

 timber for their own profit in fact, they stole it. And 

 although that court was afterwards confirmed by Act of 

 Parliament, power was given by another Act to Queen 

 Mary to alter, change, transpose, dissolve, or determine 

 the Court of Augmentations, and she did accordingly soon 

 afterwards dissolve that court, and by other letters patent 

 annex the same to the Court of Exchequer. According 

 to such articles and ordinances as were contained in a 

 schedule annexed to the letters patent, by one of those 

 articles no wood sales could afterwards be made without a 

 commission from the Lord Treasurer and two such other 

 of the court as he should call to him at the time, or in his 

 absence by the Under Treasurer, calling to him two of 

 the said court ; and another article gives power to the 

 Lord Treasurer and the Court of Exchequer to amend, 

 reform, and correct any clause or article therein contained, 

 and to make such further order as the court should think 

 expedient. The Court of Augmentations was thus 

 dissolved, and its powers transferred to the Court of 

 Exchequer ; but the system of management being still found 

 to be defective, a surveyor-general of the woods was after- 

 wards appointed, which office existed for a very long 

 period, and finally the control of the forests was vested in 

 the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, who are at pre- 

 sent the custodians of the public interests/' 





