ers, in contemplating the expediency of making a grant adapted
to the requirements of iron-making, supposing the King's furnaces to be
restored, considered that it "would utterly destroy the Forest, now the
best nursery for a navy in the world;" since the party obtaining such a
lease would be sure to consider their own advantage rather than the
preservation of the district. They also urged that a grant like that
intimated was opposed to the intentions of the Act of 20th Charles II.,
as also to the previous decisions of 1662 and 1674, and would cause much
dissatisfaction amongst the freeholders of the Forest, who were prepared
to petition against it. The commissioners recommended that "the making
of the fellets, if put in execution, should certainly be intrusted to the
present officers, who had given sufficient testimony of their care in
such matters." Their report adds that "the Lea Bayly is now a spring of
oak and beech of four, five, and six years' growth, but much cropped and
spoiled by cattle, by reason the enclosures made for the preservation
thereof have in the night been several times pulled down and destroyed by
persons unknown." The other places mentioned in the Act of 1668, called
"Cannop Fellet, Buckholt, Beachenhurst, and Moyey Stock," are described
as "generally very well grown with oak and beech of fifty, forty, and
thirty years' growth, and under, many thousand of them being forty foot
and upwards, without a bough to hurt them." They further state, that
some of the enclosure fences, especially those on the north-east side of
the Forest, would cost 137 pounds 10s. to repair, and 30 pounds a year
afterwards, perhaps, to keep them good, the other parts formerly enclosed
not needing reparation, the trees being grown up past danger from deer or
cattle, "unless in case of some accident, or pulling down by the rabble,
as hath been sometimes done." Viewing the places where the last fellets
for cordwood were made in 1690, the commissioners state that "a very
great stock has been left upon the ground for timber, and all imaginable
care taken by the officers employed in making the said fellets, and
preserving all the stores and saplings, with the principal shoots of such
beech as grow upon old stools well sheltered by other woods, for the
improvement thereof." With reference to the expediency of throwing open
such of the enclosures as contained coal-pits, we learn that no
inconvenience was felt on that account,