120 Industrial Experimeiits in Colonial America. 



cutting a 36-inch tree, and fined £50 sterling. One-half of the 

 fine, according to the act, went to the informer. Dunbar said 

 that it was reported that this informer had agreed to divide the 

 sum with the convicted person, who was to have the whole made 

 good to him by his confederates, for not having informed on 

 them for cutting 75 large trees, in the same place. On another 

 occasion, a "king's witness " with a citation in his pocket was 

 arrested for debt at the door of the court, and the king's officer 

 obliged to pay the debt, "lest other witnesses should be terrified 

 from appearing." Upon the breaking up of the court, several 

 were heard to say, that, if they must not cut trees, they would 

 girdle them, and then the king might take them. GirdHng 

 meant cutting ofif a strip of bark three or four inches wide, quite 

 around the tree, to prevent the sap from rising, which would de- 

 stroy the tree or make it fit only for boards. Another practice 

 in which the people indulged was to deliberately cut down the 

 trees marked with the broad arrow, and "in derision of the 

 king's officers" put a similar mark on trees of other timber and 

 of no value. A very vexatious inconvenience arose from the 

 fact that the Piscatauqua separated New Hampshire from 

 Maine, which was under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts; so 

 that offenders prosecuted on the Maine side had to go to Bos- 

 ton, along with witnesses and the surveyor, a distance of 140 

 miles, in the severe winter weather, to be tried by a "poor, 

 superannuated gentleman, near eighty years old, who already 

 distinguished himself very partial to the country."^ 



Prosecutions under these circumstances were practically use- 

 less. Dunbar suggested that it would be greatly to His Majes- 

 ty's service if George JafTrey, the Deputy Admiral for New 

 Hampshire, who was "of good understanding and always re- 

 spectful of His Majesty's instructions and zealous in his inter- 

 est," might be permitted to hold court on the other side of the 

 river, for the purpose of trying the seizure cases. A short time 

 after the writing of this letter, the surveyor seized some masts 

 which had been cut in Maine. He sent to the Advocate Gen- 



^Judge Byfield. 



