904 DEANE PHILLIPS 
an interesting side light on the extent of the demand for horses, for 
it is clear that at that time there was no great scarcity of them in the 
region. 
The trade between Massachusetts Bay and Barbados was more or 
less interrupted during the period of the Commonwealth in England, as 
a result of the refusal of Barbados to submit to the new authority; but, 
in general, the exportation of horses from the colony continued on a 
considerable seale, and there is much evidence of the growing dependence 
of the islands on the New England region as a source of supply. The 
report of the Commissioners for New England to the Board of Trade 
in London in 1665 states that Massachusetts exported fish, pork, beef, 
horses, and corn to Virginia and Barbados (81). Inasmuch as horses 
are not mentioned as a product of any of the other colonies, in the 
report, it may be inferred that the region about Massachusetts Bay was 
still the chief source of supply among the continental colonies. In 1673 
Captain Gorges was instructed by the Assembly of Barbados to insist 
to the English Parliament on the dependence of the island on New 
England for ‘‘ boards, timber, pipe staves, and horses,’’ to the end that 
no acts might be passed which would interfere with the trade (82). And 
in 1675 a certain ‘‘ Mr. Harris of New England ’’ gave an account of 
the trade of the country, in which he says that ‘‘ to Barbadoes in 
exchange for horses, beef, pork, butter, cheese, flour, peas, biscuit, we 
have sugar and indigo ’’ (83). 
In 1700 Massachusetts Bay was still sending large numbers of horses 
to Barbados, and also to the Leeward Islands and to Jamaica. Toward 
the end of the century, however, many of the horses shipped were 
animals that had been raised farther inland.and had been driven con- 
siderable distances to be sent out from the ports on Massachusetts 
Bay (84). This is shown, for example, by the correspondence of Waite 
Winthrop with his brother Fitz-John, of Connecticut, by which it 
appears that the latter was sending horses overland to Boston from his 
plantation on Fisher’s Island, in Long Island Sound (85). There was 
thus taking place a shift in the raising of horses in New England, by 
which other regions than that about Massachusetts Bay were coming 
to be of increasing importance, especially as regarded the export trade. 
As the settlement of New England proceeded, it was very soon dis- 
