904 Deane Phillips 



an interesting side light on the extent of the demand for horses, for 

 it is clear that at that time there was no great scarcity of them in the 

 region. 



The trade between Massachusetts Bay and Barbados was more or 

 less interrupted during the period of the Commonwealth in England, as 

 a result of the refusal of Barbados to submit to the new authority ; but, 

 in general, the exportation of horses from the colony continued on a 

 considerable scale, and there is much evidence of the growing dependence 

 of the islands on the New England region as a source of supply. The 

 report of the Commissioners for New England to the Board of Trade 

 in London in 1665 states that Massachusetts exported fish, pork, beef, 

 horses, and corn to Virginia and Barbados (81). Inasmuch as horses 

 are not mentioned as a product of any of the other colonies, in the 

 report, it may be inferred that the region about Massachusetts Bay was 

 still the chief source of supply among the continental colonies. In 1673 

 Captain Gorges was instructed by the Assembly of Barbados to insist 

 to the English Parliament on the dependence of the island on New 

 England for " boards, timber, pipe staves, and horses," to the end that 

 no acts might be passed which would interfere with the trade (82). And 

 in 1675 a certain *' Mr. Harris of New England " gave an account of 

 the trade of the country, in which he says that ^' to Barbadoes in 

 exchange for horses, beef, pork, butter, cheese, flour, peas, biscuit, we 

 have sugar and indigo " (83). 



In 1700 Massachusetts Bay was still sending large numbers of horses 

 to Barbados, and also to the Leeward Islands and to Jamaica. Toward 

 the end of the century, however, many of the horses shipped were 

 animals that had been raised farther inland and had been driven con- 

 siderable distances to be sent out from the ports on Massachusetts 

 Bay (84). This is shown, for example, by the correspondence of Waite 

 Winthrop with his brother Fitz-John, of Connecticut, by which it 

 appears that the latter was sending horses overland to Boston from his 

 plantation on Fisher's Island, in Long Island Sound (85). There was 

 'thus taking place a shift in the raising of horses in New England, by 

 which other regions than that about Massachusetts Bay were coming 

 to be of increasing importance, especially as regarded the export trade. 



As the settlement of New England proceeded, it was very soon dis- 



