r there, and iron workes
with their great antiquity, and the vast heaps of cinders which they
find, and are now of great value, being necessary for the making of iron
at this day; and without which they cannot work." Evelyn's Diary of 5th
November, 1662, also points to the same topic:--"The Council of the Royal
Society met to amend the Statutes, &c., dined together; afterwards
meeting at Gresham College, where was a discourse suggested by me,
concerning planting his Majesty's Forest of Dean with oake, now so much
exhausted of ye choicest ship-timber in the world."

Sir John Winter lost no time in acting upon the privileges conferred on
him by the late agreement; but just as on the former occasion, it gave
extreme dissatisfaction to the neighbourhood, whose complaints reached
the House of Commons, and forthwith a committee was appointed to
investigate the whole matter; from which committee Sir Charles Harbord
reported to the House, "that Sir John Winter had 500 cutters of wood
employed in Dean Forest, and that all the timber would be destroyed if
care should not be speedily taken to prevent it." The report of the
committee was accompanied by certain propositions, which manifest a
public spirit highly creditable to the neighbourhood, although "the great
difficulty" is noticed "with which the many freeholders that had right of
common and other privileges were prevailed with to submit the same to the
Crown for enclosing the said Forest." These propositions were made the
basis of the ensuing Act, and I insert them without abridgment. They are
headed:--

"Proposals by and on the behalf of the Freeholders, Inhabitants, and
Commoners, within the Forest of Dean, for the preservation and
improvement of the growth of timber there.

"Imprimis, That 11,000 acres of the wastle soil of the Forest of
Dean, whereof the Lea Baily and Cannopp to be part of the said
wastle, may be enclosed by his Majesty, and discharged for ever from
all manner of pasture, estovers, and pannage; and if ever his
Majesty, or his successors, shall think fit to lay open any part of
the said 11,000 acres, then to take in so much elsewhere, so as the
whole enclosure exceed not at any one time 11,000 acres.

"That all the wood or timber which shall hereafter grow upon the
remaining 13,000 acres shall absolutely belong to his Majesty,
discharged from all estovers for ever, and pannage for twenty years