112 Industrial Experiments in Colonial America. 



might take it into their heads to do, he was at a loss to imagine, 

 as they had just appointed a committee of the Upper and Lower 

 House, to sit on the king's title to the woods, which would re- 

 main undetermined till the next session! ^ In the meantime, al- 

 though urged to continue the prosecution of transgressors, 

 Bridger received no confirmation of his seizure of Collins's 

 masts, although he wrote again and again for instructions. This 

 failure of the government to support the Crown officers in their 

 duty, or to give them sufficient authority to act without waiting 

 for specific orders, interfered very seriously with the efforts of 

 the surveyors to defend the king's interests.^ However tactful 

 he might be, one royal officer was not a match for the entire 

 population, who took sides with the loggers, or for the courts, 

 where judge and jury alike were offenders.^ Even the lieuten- 

 ant-governors of New Hampshire were, in most cases, New 

 Englanders interested in the lumber business. Bellomont had 

 complained that the appointment of Partridge was like setting 

 a wolf to keep sheep, for he was a millwright, and the interest 

 of England was "neither in his head nor heart."* Vaughan, who 

 became lieutenant-governor in 17 15, was not a millwright, but 

 he was concerned in several saw-mills which had occasioned 

 great destruction of the woods. ^ The plea was urged on all 

 sides that the charter was of no account, so far as the king's right 

 to the woods was concerned. But for other purposes, accord- 

 ing to Bridger, "it was like the law of Medes and Persians." 

 If this charter, "the Magog and Idol of these people," were 



^Mr. Bridger's letter to the Board of Trade, July 14, 1718, in B. T. 

 New Eng., Bundle V. 



^Letter from Mr. Armstrong to the Board of Trade, complaining of 

 the lack of support on the part of the government, B. T. New Eng., 



W:74. 



•'Mr. Bridger to the Board of Trade, B. T. New Eng., Entry Bk. 

 G., May 22, 1711, and B. T. America and West Indies No. i, fol. 20. 



^Letter to Secretary Stanhope relating to Col. Vaughan's appoint- 

 ment as Lieutenant-Governor of New Hampshire, B. T. New Eng., 

 V: 70. 



sibid. 



