The Preservation of the Woods. 95 



mission fresh zeal for the king's prerogative and a determina- 

 tion that no future charges of inactivity should be justified. As 

 the disputes about the ambiguous clause in the charter relating 

 to the royal reservation, and about the king's claim to the 

 woods in Maine waxed hotter, this same zeal of the surveyor 

 continually embroiled him with the New Englanders.^ In 

 fact Jeremiah Dummer, the agent for New England, pro- 

 tested to the Board of Trade that Bridger had gone so far as to 

 forbid anyone to enter the woods or to cut any sort of lumber 

 whether lit for the navy or not.- The surveyor had been back 

 in Xew England only ten months, when he received the unwel- 

 come news that he had been superseded and his commission 

 given to Mr. Burniston, whose salary was to begin June 19, 

 171 8.' This had been brought about, according to Bridger 

 himself, by the "malicious insinuations of Mr. Dummer — a false 

 and cunning person." In his defense to the Board of Trade, 

 Bridger wrote: "I am of the opinion that my maintaining the 

 king's title to the woods against the charter and the people has 

 disgusted this great man, and I must fall a victim to his malice. 

 The rumor has spread, and the people threaten me and have be- 

 gun to cut all before them." The people were continually in- 

 venting new ways to circumvent him, and he was of the opinion 

 that a new deputy would have a sorry time of it.* Bridger was 

 so hard pushed for money, having received no salary for six 

 months, that he wrote that he would be willing to act as deputy 

 for the new surveyor, rather than starve.-^ 



Exactly what were the circumstances of Bridger's removal it 

 is not easy to say, for the Board of Trade immediately recom- 

 mended to the Treasury that his salary should be paid until his 

 successor arrived, "especially as he had not been superseded 

 for any failure in his duty." They also expressed the hope that 



iCf. Part III, Ch. I, p. 110-112. 



^Jeremiah Dummer to the Board of Trade, B. T. New Eng., V: 169. 

 *Mr. Bridger to the Board of Trade, B. T, New Eng., W: 46; Robt, 

 Armstrong to the Board of Trade, W: 47. 

 ^B. T. New, Eng., W: 46. 

 'Mr. Bridger to the Board of Trade, B. T. New Eng., W: 47. 



