6 Industrial Experiments in Colonial Amer-ica. 



received such a contract in 1691/ and in the same year John 

 Taylor, who as early as 1665 had sent samples of plantation 

 timber to the navy, contracted to furnish two or three ship- 

 loads of yards, masts and bowsprits, amiually, for five years.^ 

 Three years later Taylor sent a memorial to the Lords Com- 

 mittee of Trade, in which he states that he has been at great ex- 

 pense and trouble to start ship-building and trade in naval 

 stores in New England; he suggests that, to encourage his en- 

 terprises, his commodities and ships be made free of duty and 

 tonnage, and that the duties on rosin, pitch and tar from other 

 countries be doubled.^ 



In the meantime, a number of merchants petitioned for con- 

 tracts to import stores from the plantations. The chief of these 

 petitioners was Sir Matthew Dudley, who, with a large number 

 of gentlemen and merchants, had, just at the time of the Rev- 

 olution, undertaken to obtain an exclusive patent for working 

 mines in New England; not meeting with much success, they 

 had subsequently renewed their application for a charter, sub- 

 stituting naval stores for minerals, as the commodities of their 

 proposed monopoly. The history of their attempt covers a 

 long period of years ; therefore, partly to avoid confusion, partly 

 to use the case as an illustration of a particular phase of the 

 movement to develop colonial resources, it will be treated in 

 a subsequent chapter.* The other petitioners did not apply for 

 charters, but sent in bids to the Committee of Trade for con- 

 tracts to furnish certain quantities of stores to the navy. 



The number of proposals received early in the year 1694 evi- 

 dently suggested to the Committee the usefulness of a discus- 

 sion with the merchants on the subject of plantation stores, for 

 they granted a hearing to all the petitioners, at Whitehall, on 



^Copy of Wallis's License; Board of Trade Papers, New England, 

 Bundle F, Document 35. 



^Report of Admiralty on Taylor's Memorial (C:7) mentions this 

 contract of 1691. Board of Trade Papers, Plantations General, C: 16. 



^Memorial to Lords Com. of Trade. B. T. Plants. Gen., C: 7. 



"Cf. Part I, Ch. IL 



