926 Deane Phillips 



have raised about two hundred horses annually and to have loaded two 

 vessels a year with them and other produce of his farm. These vessels 

 sailed '^ from the South Ferry directly to the Indies where the horses 

 were in great demand" (170). It was the Hazard f amily ^^ which 

 seemed to have been mainly concerned in the early development of 

 the Narrag'ensett pacers, and it is probable that many of the horses thus 

 shipped were of the famous breed. 



To recapitulate, then, it may be said that during this period from 

 1700 to 1775, in response to the demand from the West Indies sugar 

 plantations for draft animals and from the same source and from all 

 the continental colonies for saddle purposes, the breeding of horses 

 finally became, in the period just preceding the Revolution, a wide- 

 spread industry throughout all Rhode Island and Connecticut — and 

 probably in the other New England colonies as well — and that in 

 some particularly favored spots it was carried on in a highly special- 

 ized and extensive fashion. The '' horse jockeys " with their large 

 cargoes, the numberless small vessels carrying only a few animals on 

 their scanty decks, the famous pacers driven overland to neighboring 

 continental colonies, all must have contributed a very considerable item 

 of revenue to the New England region and aided the colonists in that 

 search for '^ a good return " on which they were always bent. 



DECLINE IN HORiSE RAISING AFTER THE REVOLUTION 



The exportation of horses, which was interrupted during the Revolu- 

 tion as was the other commerce of the colonies, was revived at the close 

 of the war. Now, however, the New England vessels were denied 

 entrance to the British sugar islands by the decree restricting trade 

 to British bottoms, so that a considerable proportion of the former 

 outlet for horses no longer existed. Such shipments as were made 

 went mainly to the French islands and to Cuba, which b}^ that time 

 had been throAvn open to trade by the Spaniards and was developing 

 rapidly as a producer of sugar. 



This revival of the horse trade seems to have had its main focus in 

 New London. The " horse jockeys " were once more embarked on their 

 former service; one brig took out forty-nine horses, and many sloops 



^« The Robert Hazard mentioned above was born in 1G89 and died in 17G2. 



