60 Industrial Experiments in Colonial America, 



be induced to engage in the regular importation of colonial 

 stores.^ 



From about 1690 to 1700 the prices which the navy paid for 

 tar ranged from £6 to i 12 sterling, or over, per last (12 barrels) ; 

 pitch from £6 to £10 15s. per ton, the fluctuations being due to 

 war. To what height the Swedish prices rose at the time of the 

 Stockholm monopoly, does not appear in the lists, but Mr. Gee, 

 in a later discussion of this monopoly,^ says that the company 

 had raised the price of tar to nearly three pounds per barrel. 

 Haynes quotes current prices in London, in November, 1703, 

 at forty shillings per barrel for tar, and fifty shillings per barrel 

 for pitch.^ The prices ofjfered by merchants trading to the plan- 

 tations or by contractors, are lower than might be expected, 

 but as they are frequently given by competing bidders, on pre- 

 sumption of government encouragement, and represent an in- 

 ferior quality of product, the cheapness is more apparent than 

 real. New York tar had been offered by Colonel Fletcher, in 

 1693, at 12 pounds per last, when the Navy was buying at ii 

 pounds 12 shillings and 6 pence.* At the hearing of contractors 

 before the Board of Trade, in March, 1694,^ there was one pro- 

 posal to supply tar at £2 13s. per last (New England barrels), 

 which would amount to about iio for a last of Swedish barrels. 

 Allan and Evance offered as their prices for goods delivered in 

 England, — tar at £13 4s. per last, pitch at £25 per ton.^ Slye, of 

 Maryland, would contract for tar delivered in the province at 

 £5 4s. per last; pitch at £4 i6s. ; other stores in proportion.'^ In 

 1699, Bridger and Holland sent over from New England an 

 offer to supply tar, after two years, at £7 i6s. sterling, per last, 

 delivered in New England. In the same vear, Governor Bello- 



^Cf. Price List, Appendix A. 



^Memorial to the Board of Trade, B. T. Plants. Gen., L : 24. 

 sMemorandum of Haynes' proposals, B. T., New Eng., N : 3. 

 *Cf. Price List, Appendix A. 

 sibid. 



"Proposals offered by Evance compared with Slye's prices, B. T. 

 Plants. Gen., C : 23. 

 nbid. 



