Horse RAIsInc IN COLONIAL New ENGLAND 911 
ernor Robert Lowther, of Barbados, writing to the Board of Trade as 
early as 1715, states: ‘‘ It would be of great advantage to this place, 
and to all his Majesty’s Sugar Colonies, if there was made a law in 
England to Restrain His Subjects in North America from exporting 
Horses into any country not under his Majesty’s Dominion, for the 
French at Martinique and Guadelupe and the Dutch at Soronam begin 
to rival us in the sugar trade and this is owing to the great Supplies 
of Horses they receive from New England ’’ (112). Other British 
governors and numerous sugar planters continued to write to the Board 
cf Trade in a similar vein, protesting especially against the trade 
between the northern colonies and the French, which they claimed was 
in violation of the treaty of neutrality made in 1686 between Great 
Britain and France. 
The matter came to a climax in 1731, when the British planters 
presented a petition to Parliament with a draft of a bill which would 
specifically forbid the continental colonies to sell ‘‘ horses, lumber, and 
provisions ’’ to any but British subjects (113). Hearings were held 
on this bill and much evidence was brought out to indicate that the 
trade in horses was a very important part of this commerce. The 
testimony of a certain William Fraser is a fair sample of the large 
amount of evidence in this connection. In 1729 he claimed to have 
seen about thirty New England vessels at Martinique and St. Lucia 
trading horses for molasses, and he stated further that the New Eng- 
landers told him that if they brought in sixty horses alive they paid 
nothing for their permission to trade. 
The continental colonies vigorously defended their right to trade 
with the French and the Dutch, and the bill finally failed to pass.2 A 
long and acrimonious discussion ensued, finally resulting in the passage 
of the so-called ‘‘Molasses Act,’’® which, by putting a prohibitive duty 
on the importation of foreign sugar, molasses, and sirups, aimed to put 
an end to the questioned trade. This act, however, because of the lack 
of adequate machinery for its enforcement, could not at that time be 
5 An incorrect statement to the effect that such sales of horses to foreign sugar islands 
were prohibited in 1731 appears in the volume on Rhode Island Commerce, Massachusetts 
Historical Society, Collections, 7th ser., vol. 9, no. 69, p. 14, note 2. 
66th George II, Chapter 13. This act provided for a duty of sixpence a gallon on 
molasses and sirups, and five shillings a hundred pounds on sugar imported from any 
foreign American plantation into any British colony. Importations from Spanish and 
Portuguese sources were exempted, thus making the act in effect a hindrance only to 
trade with the French and the Dutch. 
