y8 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



esteem'd a consideration of too sordid and vulgar 

 a nature for Noble Persons and Gentlemen to busie 

 themselves withal, and who oftner find ways to 

 fell down and destroy their Frees and Plantations, 

 then either to repair or improve them/ 



As a good Royalist he gives a hard knock to 

 the heroes of the Commonwealth, and at the 

 same time indicates certain of the causes of the 

 excessive clearance of woodlands, when he con- 

 tinues: 'But what shall I then say of our late 

 prodigious Spoilers, whose furious devastation of 

 so many goodly Woods and Forests have left an 

 infamy on their Names and Memories not quickly 

 to be forgotten ! I mean our unhappy Usurpers, 

 and injurious Sequestrators ; not here to mention 

 the deplorable necessities of a Gallant and Loyal 

 Gentry, who for their Compositions were (many of 

 them) compell'd to add yet to this Waste, by an 

 inhumane and unparallel'd Tyranny over them, to 

 preserve the poor remainder of their Fortunes, and 

 to find them Bread' 



The particular difficulty about oak timber for 

 shipbuilding, however, became greater as time 

 went on and the requirements of the nation in- 

 creased. The tonnage of the navy, which had 



