Colonial lumber men resented the British law which required that the most valuable trees in the New England forests be marked with an arrow and reserved for masts for the Royal Navy. Many lumbermen ignored the rule and cut trees as they pleased. In 1734 the British Surveyor-General, Daniel Dunbar, investigated the area of the most blatant poaching, near Exeter, New Hampshire. Although townsmen refused to assist him he did discover royal trees in colonial mills. Returning to Portsmouth, Dunbar engaged ten men to help him confiscate the pilfered lumber, and by April 23, 1734, his small force arrived in Exeter. That evening the townspeople set upon Dunbar’s men and beat them severely. The Surveyor-General arrived next day with more men, and broke up one of the larger mills. At this the townspeople drove off the intruders with small arms fire. Dunbar, who was also Lieutenant Governor of the Colony, appealed to the Legislature to punish the culprits, but as that body was largely composed of persons in the lumber trade, it did no more than to make a vague apology, and the local justices of the peace, many of whom were also mill owners, refused to prosecute the townspeople. The legislature’s proclamation is from Documents and Records Relating to the Province of New-Hampshire from 1722 to 1737, IV, 678. See Joseph J. Malone: Pine Trees and Politics (1964); and Robert G. Albion: Forests and Sea Power (1926).
Whereas a great number of ill disposed persons assembled themselves together at Exeter in the Province of New Hampshire, on the 23d of April last past about 9 of the clock at night, and the and there in a riotous, tumultuous and most violent manner came into the house of Captain Samuel Gilman of said Exeter (who kept a public house in said town) and did then fall upon beat wound and terribelly [sic] abuse a number of men hired and imployed by the Honorable David Dunbar, Esq. as Surveyor General of his Majesties woods, as assistants to him in the execution of said office, many of which were beat and so abused that they very narrowly escaped with their lives (as appears by examinations taken by power of his Majesties Justices of the Peace for said province) all of which is a very great dishonor to this his Majesties province and contrary to all laws and humanity, and ought to be detested and abhorred by all parts of the legislative power. In order therefore to the finding out and bringing to condign punishment the transgressors and abettors of so vile a piece of disobedience, and in order that so great an odium may not rest upon this province, and to convince his Majestie that such villainies are abhorred by the province in general, Therefore in the House of Representatives voted, that his Excellency the Governor and Council be earnestly desired to order a strict examination into that affaire that the utmost justice may be done to his Majestie and that the persons concerned therein may no longer escape the punishment they have by their actions so justly deserved.