The Rise of Manufactures. 129 



tion, the petitioners for privileges pleaded the certain increase 

 of colonial manufactures, unless the minds of the people could 

 be diverted by the raising of naval stores. The Board began to 

 make definite inquiries about the extent of sheep-raising and 

 the wool trade. Brenton, the surveyor of customs in New 

 England, reported, in 1704, that the chief sheep-raising districts 

 were Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and some small islands 

 in the bay ; also, Rhode Island, Block Island, and Canonicut 

 in Narragansett Bay. The reason that wool growing was con- 

 fined to the islands was the prevalence of wolves on the main- 

 land. Some sheep were raised along the sea-border near Bos- 

 ton, but this required the hired labor of shepherds, which was 

 very expensive, so that the towns were mostly supplied by the 

 islands. " Since the wool act," said Brenton, " we have used 

 our endeavor to prevent the carrying of wool from the islands to 

 the main, but I do not think it possible wholly to prevent it, 

 for some of these islands lie very near — within a half or a quar- 

 ter of a mile of the main. The country is large and the officers 

 so few, that it may be carried in boats and canoes, in the night, 

 from one place to another, notwithstanding all that the officers 

 can do. But the inhabitants cry aloud that this act does not 

 intend to hinder the carrying wool by water from one place to 

 another in the same colony, of which opinion are most of the 

 lawyers here. The act has had the efifect that those towns which 

 cannot be supplied but by stealth, nor without great charge and 

 hazard (involved in smuggling) are now endeavoring to raise 

 sheep and keep them by shepherds." Brenton goes on to say 

 that in a recent journey he made it his business to inform him- 

 self on the subject, and he found that, in some towns where 

 formerly there were not one hundred sheep kept, there would 

 shortly be a thousand ; and the islands which once supplied 

 the towns were now working up their own wool for wearing ap- 

 parel, in much greater quantities than formerly, instead of sell- 

 ing their wool for money '" wherewith to purchase a finer sort 

 of woolen manufactures from England."^ This description is 



^Mr. Brenton's account of the condition of New England, B. T.> 

 New Eng., N: 33. 



