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 their cabins when abandoned, in order to secure the nails by which the planks were held together, and so general did this habit become, that in 1644-45 it was provided by law, as a means of destroying the motive for setting the houses on fire, that each planter, when he gave up his dwelling, should be allowed, at public expense, as many nails as two impartial men should calculate to be in the frame of the deserted residence. All these articles in use had been imported. Large quantities frequently formed a part of the estate of the landowner. Thus the inventory of the personalty of Francis Mathews, in 1675, showed him to have been in possession of seven thousand eight-penny, nine thousand six-penny, five thousand four-penny, and two thousand ten-penny nails. John Carter of Lancaster left, as a part of his estate, over seven thousand eight-penny, twelve thousand two hundred and thirty-three ten-penny, and nearly five thousand twenty-penny nails. Fitzhugh, in ordering nails from his merchant in London, would give directions that several thousand of different kinds should be sent to him at one time.

It is quite probable that for a number of years after the foundation of Jamestown, neither plank nor nails entered into the construction of a majority of the houses in which the colonists lived. Undressed logs were doubtless the material principally in use. George Sandys, in a letter to a member of the Council in 1623, expressed the opinion that the only advantage which resulted from the massacre in the previous year was that it had compelled the planters to draw into narrower limits and to live more closely together, the continuation of which would inevitably lead