The Lumber Trade in Neio England. 107 



masts, yards and bowsprits, were put on the same footing as the 

 enumerated commodities. But the trade in other kinds of tim- 

 ber and probably by evasion, in masts and bowsprits as well, 

 continued to increase, in spite of occasional protests against the 

 bad policy of allowing countries, which were, or might at any 

 moment become, the enemies of Great Britain, to be supplied 

 by the American plantations. Information was received by the 

 Board of Trade from a sailor of Falmouth, lately come from 

 Calez (Cadiz?) in a Dutch ship, that before he left, there came a 

 fleet of five ships from New England full of stores of masts, oak 

 timber and planks, for that king's service. The informant 

 hoped the matter "would be inquired into and those wicked men 

 punished." 



The legitimate export of lumber was surprisingly great. The 

 statistics of the quantities of timber sent from New Hampshire 

 to Lisbon and Cadiz between 17 12 and 171 8 speak for them- 

 selves;^ 2,176 pieces of oak timber from 30 to 55 feet long, 98,- 

 925 oak planks, 3,035 oak joists, 43,880 pine planks, 22,000 pine 

 boards, 93,250 pipe staves, 42,360 hogshead staves, 5,470 oak 

 bolts, 168 standards, 12 knees, 1,511 spars, 8 bowsprits, 135 

 stocks, 1,100 ash rafters, 173 pine timbers (?), J52 carriage 

 trucks. 



Occasional complaints continued to be made of this trade 

 of New England with Spain and Portugal, especially because it 

 contributed to the destruction to the king's woods. In 1729, 

 the Board of Trade were informed through Dunbar's deputy in 

 New Hampshire, that there were in that place seven ships laden 

 with planks for Spain. " Tis very moving," he says, "to hear 

 complaints at home for want of timber, when His ^Majesty's 

 subjects here are supplying his enemies abroad."- Neverthe- 

 less, although the Crown officers in New England laid so much 

 stress upon the prevalence of this foreign trade, the home gov- 

 ernment showed a general indifference to the consequences. 



nVm. Cornes to the Board of Trade, Dec. 15, 1718, B. T. New Eng. 

 W: 63. 

 ^Letter from Mr. Slade to Mr. Dunbar, B. T. New Eng., Z: 46. 



