Forest of Deane."

CHAPTER V.
A.D. 1758-1800.

Mr. John Pitt suggested 2,000 acres to be planted--The Forest
surveyed--Great devastations and encroachments--The roads--Act of 1786,
appointing a Commission of Inquiry--New plantations recommended--Messrs.
Drivers employed to report on the Forest--Corn riots--Mitcheldean market.

Reverting to the state of the woods and timber in the Forest, it appears
that ere this the old enclosures had been thrown open, the trees planted
early in this century having attained to considerable size, and some
parts so far cleared as to suggest the formation of new plantations. In
1758 John Pitt, Esq., then Surveyor-General of Woods, &c., proposed to
the Treasury that 2,000 acres should be enclosed, which was ordered to be
done accordingly; but probably it was executed in part only, since Mr.
Pitt was removed from his office five years afterwards, when a survey of
the timber was made, and it was computed that there were 27,302 loads of
timber fit for the navy, 16,851 loads of about sixty years' growth, and
20,066 loads dotard and decaying. To this period also belongs the first
opening of the old Fire-engine colliery, or Orling Green coal-work, galed
to "foreigners," but subsequently conveyed by them at different times in
shares to various persons, including the gaveller, by whom the first
fire-engine was put up about 1777, a date also memorable as being the one
on which the Court of Free Miners wholly ceased to act.

Mr. John Pitt was reinstated in 1763, and represented that he found
"great spoil had been committed, and great quantities of wood and timber,
amounting in value to 3,255 pounds, cut by order of Sir Edmund Thomas,
the late Surveyor-General, without warrant." The year following, Mr.
Pitt presented a second memorial to the Government, proposing that 2,000
acres more should be taken in, at an estimated cost of 2,077 pounds. The
usual warrant was issued for the purpose, authorizing wood-sales to that
amount, although the expense ultimately came to 3,676 pounds 5s. 6.5d.

The attention of Parliament was directed at this time to the best means
of increasing the supply of timber to the Royal dockyards. A committee
formed for investigating the matter produced the clearest evidence of
decrease of navy timber throughout the kingdom, to the extent of at least
two-thirds within the last forty years, according to the experience of
thirty different dealers. The annual amount