Interest in Colonial Resources. 11 



July 22d, Mr. Bridger wrote to the Board of Trade that he 

 was working single-handed, since Furzer was dead and Part- 

 ridge, though very ready to give him a guard, was himself 

 occupied with his duties as Governor of Piscataqua; while 

 Jackson, contrary to instructions, had been at New York all 

 the time and had not helped him at all, so that he was "forced 

 to do all alone and ride up and down night and day."^ This 

 does not agree with Jackson's own account, quoted above, but 

 the delinquent may have appeared on the scene after the date 

 of Bridger's letter. Another letter from Bridger, written at 

 Boston, November 6th, relates that in a progress from Cape 

 Cod to Rhode Island, a distance of two hundred miles, he 

 found very little good timber. He had also traveled forty miles 

 to the place where hemp was grown, to encourage the people 

 and instruct them in managing their land, which was not in 

 itself rich enough to produce hemp.^ 



On the 9th of September, 1699, Governor Bellomont wrote 

 a letter to the Board of Trade,^ in w^hich he enclosed an en- 

 couraging but vague report from Bridger. Some thousands of 

 trees had been prepared for making tar after the most approved 

 East Country methods, but the result could not be determined. 

 The hemp experiment he thought likely to prove successful. 

 Rosin had been tested and approved, and most of the timber 

 was considered to be of good quality. He strongly recom- 

 mended that, as a matter of economy, the king build trans- 

 ports in America. He complained of the waste of the woods 

 and the neglect of Brenton, the surveyor of the woods.* Lord 

 Bellomont expressed his opinion that the investigation was 



^Letter from Sec. Vernon, enclosing letter from Bridger, B. T. New 

 Eng., Entry Bk. B., September 25, 1698. 



^Bridger to Board of Trade, B. T. New Eng., C: 27. 



3 Bellomont to Board of Trade, B. T. New Eng., F: 4. 



^Report from Bridger enclosed in a letter from Gov. Bellomont, 

 Sept. 9, 1699, B. T. New Eng., F: 19, 20. Brenton held the offices 

 of collector of customs and surveyor of the woods in New England 

 about 1695. The importance subsequently attached to the preserva- 

 tion of the woods will be discussed in Part II, Chap. I. 



