902 DEANE PHILLIPS 
the Portuguese, and by, 1670 the latter had been forced out of practically 
all the markets north of Cape Finisterre (70). 
EARLY EXPORTATION OF NEW ENGLAND HORSES 
The rapid development of the British stgar islands called for great 
quantities of supplies to earry on the work of the plantations, and, 
since the islands had few resourees of their own, importations were 
necessary. Provisions from Ireland, slaves from Africa, shoes and 
other manufactured goods from Europe, as well as the products of the 
continental British colonies —the nature of which has already been 
indicated — all were brought into the islands, and of these supplies 
horses were a not unimportant item. 
In the earliest days of the sugar industry, trade was still free and 
the Dutch and the Portuguese seem to have furnished the British islands 
with as many horses as were needed (71). With the stoppage of this 
trade by law and the increasing development of the plantations, how- 
ever, recourse was had to England and to New England to supply the 
demand. During the period between 1649 and 1658 the importations of 
English horses were especially numerous. In those years there are 
recorded in the British Colonial Papers forty-eight different permits for 
such shipments, for a total of more than nineteen hundred horses (72). 
England continued to send horses until as late as 1667 (73), but the 
levying in 1654 of an export duty of 20 shillings a head (74) eut down 
the numbers considerably and hastened the shift in the trade by which 
New England at length became almost the sole source of supply for the 
islands. In that region there was no export duty except in Massa- 
chusetts Bay, where it was only sixpence, and the cost of transporta- 
tion was much less beeause of the shorter distance, which resulted also 
in much smaller losses in transit. 
The trade of Massachusetts Bay with the West Indies had already 
been established before the production of sugar in the British islands 
had come to be of importance, and so it is only natural that with the 
rise of the latter industry and the demand for horses the growing 
surplus of New England animals should receive the advantage of the 
outlet thus opened. As a result, horses were being shipped from 
Massachusetts ports fully as early as from those of England, and, for 
