nformed that there is carryed out yearly at least 4000 dozen; and there
is now lying at Newnham a small vessell to transport some for Ireland.
There must needs be a Prohibition to carry out of the Forrest any
cinders, least his Maty's owne works should need them in tyme." {47a}

Reasons so carefully analyzed for inducing the Crown to take in hand iron
making at Park End, deserved a better fate. But the king had irons
enough in the fire, without becoming a manufacturer of iron in the Forest
of Dean. Its timber was rather wanted for the navy, which the Duke of
York longed to render more effective. Besides, places more convenient of
access, in Surrey and Sussex, were supplying the iron trade. Hence, when
in 1683 the above-named proposal was renewed by Sir John Erule, the
Forest supervisor, it was rejected, although he promised a profit of 5390
pounds per annum. {47b}

The authorities went further than this, in refusing, as they thought, to
sacrifice the timber for the iron. They even directed, about this time,
the demolition of the Forest furnaces, thus reducing its iron works to
such a degree as almost to annihilate them for the next hundred years.

What their recent state of prosperity had been, Andrew Yarranton, in his
book of novel suggestions for the "Improvement of England by Sea and
Land," printed in 1677, describes as follows:--

"And first, I will begin in Monmouthshire, and go through the Forest
of Dean, and there take notice what infinite quantities of raw iron
is there made, with bar iron and wire; and consider the infinite
number of men, horses, and carriages which are to supply these works,
and also digging of ironstone, providing of cinders, carrying to the
works, making it into sows and bars, cutting of wood and converting
into charcoal. Consider also, in all these parts, the woods are not
worth the cutting and bringing home by the owner to burn in their
houses; and it is because in all these places there are pit coal very
cheap. . . . If these advantages were not there, it would be little
less than a howling wilderness. I believe if this comes to the hands
of Sir Baynom Frogmorton and Sir Duncomb Colchester, they will be on
my side. Moreover, there is yet a most great benefit to the kingdom
in general by the sow iron made of the ironstone and Roman cinders in
the Forest of Dean, for that metal is of a most gentle, pliable, soft
natu