58 Industrial Experiments in Colonial America. 



they sent on the sea, or in port, and taking it at reasonable 

 rates. 



There were no other available European sources of supply. 

 Courland and Finland were in the hands of the Swedes ; Norway 

 yielded very little tar, and that of a poor quality; and not much 

 was to be got from Muscovy. Retaliation, by increasing the 

 duties on Swedish tar, was a possible method of forcing down 

 the Stockholm Company's prices, but the risk seemed too great, 

 in view of the pressing needs of the navy. There were, how- 

 ever, the plantations in America, and it remained to be seen 

 whether these could be depended upon to furnish supplies of 

 proper quality and of suf^cient quantity. Dr. Robinson wrote 

 in his letter: "What difficulties there are in making and bring- 

 ing it (tar) from New England, I am not acquainted with, but 

 take it for granted England had better give one-third more for 

 it from thence, than have it at such uncertainties, and in so pre- 

 carious a manner from other countries." 



The Board of Trade and all the merchants who had anything 

 to do with importing colonial products were fully aware of the 

 difficulties of which Dr. Robinson expressed his ignorance. 

 The question had been fully discussed by the Board in their de- 

 liberations on the Dudley petition, which was still pending.^ 

 The chief obstacle to production was the scarcity and dearness 

 of labor in the plantations; while the expense and danger in- 

 curred in transportation rendered competition with the Baltic 

 countries out of the question, if the Navy continued to insist 

 upon their policy of buying in the cheapest market. Another 

 discouragement to importation was the inferior quality of Amer- 

 ican pitch and tar, by reason of the ignorance of the people of 

 the proper methods of manufacture. Of course, it was not 

 difficult to devise measures for obviating all these difficulties, 

 but the government felt a reasonable hesitation about incurring 

 the great expense which a serious and thorough-going attempt 

 to promote the colonial manufacture of pitch and tar would in- 

 volve. To the most liberal economists of the time, it appeared 



^Cf. Part I, Ch. II, p. 29. 



