SHIPBUILDING, NAVAL STORES AND SEAMANSHIP 485
encouraging the art was systematically pursued, with the AD: 1689
view of securing a fleet of “defensible ships” which were ’
zapable of carrying guns’. The resources of the plantations
in America seemed to open up a boundless field, from which
masts, and spars, and naval stores might be obtained, both
for the King’s ships and the mercantile marine ; persistent,
though not very successful, efforts were made to procure such
products from the colonies. Attention had been called to li
this source of supply by various writers, all through the were
seventeenth century?; and attempts had been made to form ona]
companies both in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, which feng rid
might meet the requirements of the mother country. In stores
1696, the newly established Board of Trade and Plantations
sent out commissioners to report on the opportunities of the
plantations for the growth of hemp, the manufacture of tar,
and the supply of masts and spars®; they also encouraged
Colonel Hunter, the Governor of New York, in his scheme
for getting over the difficulty due to the scarcity of labour
by importing a number of Palatines in 1710¢ In the mean-
time, however, the interruption of the Baltic trade, and the
practical monopoly secured by the Tar Company of Sweden®,
roused the attention of Parliament, and in 1704 an Act was
passed?, the preamble of which is an admirable statement of
the current opinion on the subject. “Whereas the royal
navy, and the navigation of England, wherein, under God,
the wealth, safety and strength of this kingdom is so much
concerned, depends on the due supply of stores necessary for
the same, which being now brought in mostly frol foreign
parts, in foreign shipping, at exorbitant and arbitrary rates,
to the great prejudice and discouragement of the trade and
navigation of this kingdom, may be provided in a more
certain and beneficial manner from her Majesty’s own do-
minions: and whereas her Majesty's colonies and plantations
1 5 and 6 W. and M. c. 24. On the competition between American and English
ship-building, see p. 479 above and p. 832 below.
? Lord, op. cit. 2. 8 Lord, op. cit. 9.
* Lord, op. cit. p. 43. On the Palatines, see Cunningham, Alien Immigrants, 249.
5 Supplies were also obtained from Russia (1721), but the conditions of trade
were equally unsatisfactory. Parl. Hist. vi. 928.
6 8 and 4 Anne, ¢. 10. See also 8 Anne. c. 13, § 30: 9 Anne, ¢. 17; 12 Anne,
Stat. 1. co. 9.
