22 Industrial Experiments in Colonial America. 



restrictions as it was proposed to insert in their patent. They 

 thought that they had given the Board of Trade sufficient rea- 

 sons to beheve that the said undertaking was not "notional," 

 and that stock-jobbing was not intended. They were wilhng 

 to submit to reasonable restrictions and their later proposals 

 fell far short of the privileges which the several favorable reports 

 hitherto made on the matter had given them reason to believe it 

 was intended to grant them. The inclination they apprehended 

 their Lordships had to promote the undertaking, and the en- 

 couragement given had diverted them from applying to Par- 

 liament. They could not possibly accept a charter under such 

 provisos as had lately been sent them, and if these were insisted 

 upon they must wholly desist from giving their Lordships the 

 trouble of any further application on that account. After so 

 much time, trouble and expense, they would wait until they had 

 an opportunity of representing elsewhere the great benefit 

 which the said undertaking would prove to the king and all his 

 dominion.^ 



The Board of Trade took pains to look up the case of monop- 

 oly referred to by the petitioners, and procured an attested copy 

 of an act passed by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay, 

 May 31, 1 67 1, by which Mr. Richard Wharton and Mr. John 

 Saffyn, merchants, and Company, were granted exclusive priv- 

 ileges to produce and sell pitch, rosin, oils of turpentine and 

 mastick, for ten years, within the jurisdiction of the Court. The 

 undertakers were granted the use of the pine or cedar trees 

 within the compass of 5,000 acres of land, not otherwise 

 granted, for their use in several places where they should find it 

 most convenient, on condition that the commodities produced 

 be sold at reasonable rates for the use of the country, and that 

 they pay six pence per cent, of all the pitch and rosin made.- 



On the 14th of September, 1697, the Board of Trade sent 

 Dudley's proposals to Ashurst and Phips, for their opinion 



^Memorial of subscribers to copper mines, etc., B. T, New Eng., 



B:44. 



^Copy of Act of Gen. Court of Mass. Bay, B. T. New Eng., Entry 

 Bk. A, September 10, 1697. 



