108 hidustrial Experiments in Colonial America. 



The Treasury, it is true, recommended to the Board of Trade, in 

 1727, that they should procure an act of ParUament to prevent 

 the exportation of masts and timber from the plantations to 

 foreign ports; but nothing came of their proposal, and although 

 an act relating to plantation timber was passed two years later, 

 no provision was made for any such restriction. As late as 

 1739, Benning Wentworth, of Piscatauqua, had large contracts 

 with an agent at the court of Spain for oak timber,^ and it was 

 not until 1765 that the blow w^as struck at illicit foreign trade, 

 by the prohibition of export to any but English ports. In 1766, 

 non-enumerated articles were placed under the same restrictions 

 as enumerated commodities. - 



Let us now turn to that more serious disturbing element in the 

 commercial relations between New England and the Crown, 

 which has been alluded to as the efifort to maintain the king's 

 prerogative in the woods. The charter of Massachusetts Bay, 

 granted in 1691, distinctly reserved to the Crown all trees 24 

 inches in diameter upwards of 12 inches from the ground, grow- 

 ing upon any tract of land not hitherto granted to any private 

 person ; and all persons were forbidden to cut or destroy such 

 trees, without a license from the Crown.^ At the granting of the 

 charter, it had not yet been decided to make any attempt to rely 

 exclusively on the royal woods in America for the masting of the 

 fleets ; but there were one or two contractors employed to fetch 

 over a certain number of masts vearlv, and it was to these con- 



^Weeden, p. 578. 



26 Geo. III. 



^Poore's "Charters," Parti. The clause reads: "And lastly for 

 the better providing and furnishing of Masts for our Royal Navy, 

 Wee doe hereby reserve to Us all trees of 24 inches in diameter up- 

 wards of 12 inches from the ground growing upon anysoyle or Tract 

 of Land within Our said Province or Territory not heretofore 

 granted to any private persons. And Wee doe restraine and forbid 

 all persons whatsoever from felling, cutting or destroying any such 

 Trees without the Royall Lycence of Us, Our Heires and Succes- 

 sors; for every Such Tree soe felled, cutt or destroyed without such 

 Lycence had or obteyned in that behalfe, anything in these presents 

 conteyned to the contrary in any wise Notwithstanding." 



