In 1708 the first census was taken by order of the Board of Trade, giving for result seven thousand one hundred and eighty-one inhabitants, of whom one thousand and fifteen were freemen. The militia amounted to one thousand three hundred and sixty-two. There were fifty-six white servants and four hundred and twenty-six black. In the same year we meet for the first time, "vendue masters" and public auctions. The subject of "a uniform value for foreign coins in the colonies" was discussed in Parliament, and made the subject of a circular letter from the Board of Trade. The increase of the settlements made it necessary to provide for the Indians. A committee was appointed to confer with Ninigret about lands for his tribe, the Niantics, and choose the site of a new town in Narragansett. I have already spoken of the judicial functions of the Assembly. They had increased so much that it was deemed necessary to impose a tax of two pounds upon every appellant before his case could be taken up. The reports to the Board of Trade and the commutation table of taxation throw much light upon the commercial and agricultural progress of the Colony. In the commutation roll Indian coin was rated at "two shillings a bushel, barley at one and eightpence, rye at two and sixpence, oats at fourteen pence, wheat at three shillings, and wool at ninepence a pound." From the statistical reports to the Board of Trade, we learn that the annual "exports sent to England by way of Boston amounted to twenty thousand pounds; that the principal direct trade was by the West Indies; and that within the past twenty years the amount of shipping had increased six-fold." This increase it was said was owing to the superiority of the colonial shipwrights. Eighty-four vessels of all sizes had been built in the Colony within eleven years. The population was divided. Aquidneck "was taken up in small farms," and the young men took to the sea. In 1709 a printing press was set up in Newport and a public printer appointed. This pioneer printer was the son of a New York printer named Bradford, who offered to do the public printing of the Colony for fifty pounds a year. The offer was accepted for one year. The war dragged heavily on, eating into the resources of the Colony and driving her to that most fatal of all expedients, the issue of paper money. A great expedition against Canada was planned, and failed. Rhode Island, which had been very active in raising men and supplies and had taxed herself liberally, shared the common disappointment.