PART I. 



CHAPTER I. 



From the Settlement of the Colonies to the End of 

 THE Seventeenth Century. 



It is interesting to note that, as the romantic spirit which 

 characterized the colonists of Raleigh's generation gave place 

 to the more practical enterprise of the chartered trading com- 

 panies which proposed to settle and exploit the new world 

 called America, there was a corresponding change in the esti- 

 mate of the relative importance of the new country's resources. 

 While the accumulation of the precious metals continued to 

 hold high rank in the economic creed of the day, the men who 

 chiefly had to do with colonial enterprises no longer dreamed 

 of increasing the treasure of the kingdom exclusively from the 

 gold and silver and precious stones of the new world. The at- 

 tention of the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations 

 and that of the planters themselves was directed, rather, to the 

 development of the agricultural resources and the raw ma- 

 terials of the country. Of the natural products of the soil, the 

 timber along the entire stretch of the Atlantic seaboard by rea- 

 son of its abundance and variety was bound to challenge 

 notice as suitable not only for building material, but for the 

 equipment of the royal navy. We have only to read Hakluyt's 

 "Voyages," to find that even in the sixteenth century the dis- 

 coverers had an eye to the masting and caulking of Gloriana's 

 ships, when they made their inventories of the products of Vir- 

 ginia.^ During the period of actual settlement the importance of 

 the trade in naval stores appears to have been plainly recognized. 

 Although the New England charter of 1620 makes no mention 

 of woods or timber, the charter of Massachusetts Bay, granted 



iHakluyt, "Voyages of the 'English Nation to America," Vol. II, 

 pp. 301-327. 



