76 Industrial Experiments in Colonial America. 



therefore, made it advisable to continue the poHcy of encourag- 

 ing the importation of the products for which England de- 

 pended on the northern crowns. In December, 1718, Joshua 

 Gee recommended that a bounty be granted on bar and cast 

 iron from the plantations, and that timber, boards and staves be 

 let in free of duty.^ The merchants were invited to wait on the 

 Ministry at the Board of Trade and to express their views on 

 these suggestions. They represented, first, that the proposed 

 measure would at least lower the prices and lessen the imports 

 of Danish and Swedish commodities, and they stated that 

 20,000 tons of foreign iron were required annually, to carry on 

 their manufactures; secondly, that the plantation trade in these 

 products would double the navigation, and would not only be 

 an additional employment to English ship-builders, as well as 

 to sailors and seamen, but it would increase the consumption of 

 provisions. "As our navigation increases," argued these ex- 

 ponents of mercantilism, " that of Sweden and Denmark must, 

 of course, sink." Lastly, they said, ships that were disappointed 

 of their cargo, in years when the tobacco and sugar crops fell 

 short, would no longer be forced to return dead-freighted, or to 

 lie over for the whole season, as often transpired. - 



After a great many meetings, in which it was satisfactorily 

 demonstrated that it would be a great advantage to the king- 

 dom to be supplied from the plantations and very much enlarge 

 the export of woolen and other manufactures, a motion was 

 made to bring a bill into the House for the accomplishment of 

 those ends. Such a bill passed the Commons in 1719,^ but with 

 the addition of a clause forbidding the manufacture in the plan- 

 tations of any iron wares made from sows, pigs or bars. The 

 House of Lords added another clause forbidding "the erection 

 of forges for making sows, pigs or cast iron into bars or rod 

 iron." In a later memorial* (October 27, 1721). Mr. Gee says 



'"Joshua Gee's Account of Trade for Iron and Timber, with the 

 Northern Crowns," B. T. Plants. Gen., Entry Bk. E., Dec. 31, 1718. 

 -''Letter to a Member of Parliament." 

 "Ibid. 

 *B. T. Plants. Gen., L: 24. 



