156 REPORT OF THE No. 3 



Minerals and Water Powers Reserved. 



"And to prevent individuals from monopolizing such spots as contain 

 min-es, minerals, fossils, and conveniences for mills and other singular 

 advantages of a common and public nature, to the prejudice of the general 

 interest of the settlers, the Surveyor General and his agents or Deputy 

 Surveyors in the different districts, shall confine themselves in the locations 

 to be made by them upon certificates of the respective boards to such lands 

 only as are fit for the common purposes of husbandry, and they shall reserve 

 all other spots aforementioned together with all such as may be fit and use- 

 ful for ports and harbors or works of defence, or such as contain valuable 

 timber for shipbuilding or other purposes, conveniently situated for water 

 carriage, in the hands of the Crown." 



No approach was made to a license system, nor any arrangement made 

 by which the public could receive any return for the privilege of cutting 

 timber on the Crown domain for other purposes, than naval construction, 

 until a considerably later date. 



Naval Contract Abused. 



Licenses to cut timber in the Canadian forests were granted by the 

 Home Government to the contractors for the Eoyal Dockyards, who in addi- 

 tion to filling theip contracts, took advantage of the privileges afforded them 

 for that purpose, to do a general business in supplying the British markets. 

 They carried on this profitable enterprise by issuing licenses to merchants 

 and lumbermen in Canada who operated as their agents, as they were legally 

 authorized to do. The Upper Canada Gazette contains the fallowing notice 

 of a Royal Warrant vesting in a firm of navy contractors the right to cut 

 trees reserved to the Crown in Upper and Lower Canada, together with the 

 appointment of a Canadian Mercantile house as their agents, which illus- 

 trates the working of the system. 



An Extensive Timber Limit. 



Council Chamber, 23 January, 1808. 



Notice is hereby given by His Excellency, the Lieutenant-Governor-in- 

 Council, to all whom it may concern, that His Majesty has been pleased to 

 issue His Royal Warrant in the words following : George R. 



''Whereas, a Contract has been entered into by the principal Officers 

 of His Majesty's Navy, with Messrs. Scott, Idles & Co., supplying His 

 Majesty's dockyards in England and the West Indies, with Canada Masts 

 and Oak Timber, and it being stipulated in the said contract that no Masts 

 or Bowsprits which are cut in His Majesty's Colonies shall be delivered at 

 the Dockyards unless they are cut by License from His Majesty's Surveyor 

 of the Woods in North America, and also if it should be required, under 

 the inspection of this Officer. Upon the representation of the matter to Us 

 by the Commissioner for executing the Office of High Admiral of Our United 

 Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, We have thought fit to give Leave, 

 License and Permission unto the said Messrs. Scott, Idles & Co., their agents 

 and workmen, to travel into and search Our Woods in Our Provinces of 

 Upper and Lower Canada, where We have reserved to Us the property in 

 any Woods or Trees, and the right of cutting them, and there to fell and 

 cut so many good and sound trees as may answer the number and dimen- 

 sions mentioned in the said contract (a copy whereof subscribed by one of 



