12 Industrial Experiments in Colonial America. 



very expensive and its progress slow. At Piscataqua he had 

 talked with Mr. Partridge, who owned that pitch and tar could 

 not be made in any quantity there because of the scarcity and 

 dearness of labor — there being only about seven hundred fam- 

 ilies in the province, and the price of labor being at least three 

 shillings per day. 



In view of Bridger's complaints of his fellow commissioners, 

 it is interesting to hear through Lord Bellomont the version of 

 Partridge and Jackson, who insisted that Bridger, without con- 

 sulting them in the least, carried on private management, draw- 

 ing money and ordering what work he pleased to have done.^ 

 Lord Bellomont had taken upon himself, as governor, to ques- 

 tion Bridger about his accounts, — an interference to which the 

 surveyor decidedly objected, saying that he was accountable to 

 the Navy Board and not to Lord Bellomont. But the latter, 

 either from zealous care for the government's interest or from 

 meddlesome curiosity, insisted upon knowing what Bridger 

 did with all the money he drew. Bridger refused to give him 

 a particular account of his expenditures, but he did show him a 

 scrap of paper on which was written the whole sum drawn, 

 amounting to ii,oio i8s. ii,ooo had been advanced to the 

 commissioners before they left England, and Bridger had 

 drawn £450 for the hire of ships to send home the specimens, 

 making in all £2,460 i8s. already expended. Bellomont said 

 that the purveyors were reckoning on £2^0 apiece for a year's 

 salary. One of Partridge's ship-loads was valued at £300; 

 therefore, Bridger's ship of half the tonnage should be worth 

 about £150. Lord Bellomont did not accuse the commission- 

 ers of dishonesty, but he felt very strongly that, through bad 

 economy, "the king's design had become very chargeable:" 

 four people were drawing pay for what one might do alone.^ 



The commission acted with no sort of co-operation, and 

 Partridge and Jackson sent home a report of their doings in 

 New Hampshire entirely independent of Bridger's account, 



^Letter from Bellomont to Board of Trade, B. T. New Eng., F: 4. 

 ^Letter from Bellomont to Board of Trade, B. T. New Eng., F: 25. 



