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EPISTLE DEDICATORY.

that sacred Oak which you consecrated with your

Presence, and we celebrate, with just acknowledgmentto God , for your Preservation.

I need not acquaint your Majesty how many millionsof timber-trees, besides infinite others, have been pro-pagated and planted throughout your vast dominions,at the instigation, and by the sole direction of thiswork; because your gracious Majesty has been pleasedto own it publickly for my encouragement, who, in allthat I here pretend to say, deliver only those preceptswhich your Majesty has put into practice; as having,like another Cyrus, by your own royal example, ex-ceeded all your predecefsors in the plantations youhave made, beyond, I dare afsert it, all the monarchs ofthis nation, since the conquest of it. And, indeed,what more august, what more worthy your Majesty, ormore becoming our imitation, than, whilst you are thussolicitous for the public good, we pursue your Majesty’sgreat example, and, by cultivating our decaying woods,contribute to your power, as to our greatest wealth andsafety; since whilst your Majesty is furnished to send