The Lumber Trade in New England. Ill 



rivers of Piscatauqua, which was a damage to Her Majesty of 

 more than £17,000, at £30 a mast. Moreover, Mico's work- 

 men had let other loggers into Her Majesty's woods where 

 they had cut many hundred masts. ^ 



Governor Dudley tried to smooth matters over, not knowing 

 which side to support.- The Board of Trade encouraged 

 Bridger to maintain the charter and to prosecute offenders, and 

 at the same time they sent to Solicitor General Eyre for his in- 

 terpretation of the clause in the charter, especially of the words 

 " private persons."^ The legal authority conceived the phrase 

 to mean particular persons, not towns, bodies politic, etc. But 

 he submitted his opinion that the Crown had no more right to 

 cut timber on lands granted to bodies politic than on those 

 granted to private persons ; for when the inheritance of the lands 

 was granted, by virtue of former charters where trees were not 

 reserved, trees passed as part of the inheritance, and a reserva- 

 tion by a subsequent charter could not deprive the proprietors 

 of interest in those trees. Therefore, the clause did not hold in 

 regard to any trees growing on lands granted by former char- 

 ters, but only to those on lands granted under that of 1691. 

 This interpretation, coming from the counsel of the Crown, 

 savors of loose construction, and, as a decision, it is not very 

 clear. The Assembly of Massachusetts insisted that they had 

 it in their power to grant all lands and woods without the town- 

 ships, or give them away, as they pleased; and that they could 

 lay out new towns, which they proceeded to do, to the distrac- 

 tion of the surveyors, and in spite of the expostulations of the 

 governor. Bridger wrote, in despair, that if such practices 

 were sanctioned, the king would soon be unable to have a mast 

 without buying it of the proprietors. What else the people 



1 Deposition against Mico by Bridger, B. T. America and West 

 Indies, I: 82. 



-Gov. Dudley to the Board of Trade, B. T. New Eng., Entry 

 Bk. G., April, 1710. 



^Secretary Popple (of the Board of Trade) to Solicitor General 

 Eyre, B. T. New Eng., S: 93. 



