First importations to Boston and to Salem—Importations from Holland brought high prices—They were not pacers and not over fourteen hands—In 1640 horses were exported to the West Indies—First American newspaper and first horse advertisement—Average sizes—The different gaits—CONNECTICUT, first plantation, 1636—Post horses provided for by law—All horses branded—Sizes and Gaits—An Englishman’s experience with pacers—Lindsay’s Arabian—RHODE ISLAND, Founded by Roger Williams, 1636—No direct importations ever made—Horses largely exported to other colonies 1690—Possibly some to Canada—Pacing races a common amusement—Prohibited 1749—Size of the Narragansetts compared with the Virginians. In 1629 the London founders of the plantation of Massachusetts Bay sent out six vessels laden with emigrants, horses, cattle, goats, etc. These vessels brought some twenty-five head of mares and stallions, that were valued at six pounds each and all owned by the company in London, except three mares from Leicester, that were owned by private parties. At that time there seems to have been some rivalry between Boston and Salem as a shipping point, but this fleet came to Boston harbor. This same year (1629) Salem seems to have had six or seven mares and one stallion, besides forty cows, and forty goats. From this it might be safely inferred that a part of this fleet put into Salem harbor, or that there may have been another and somewhat earlier shipment of which we have no details. Salem was really founded in 1626, and the settlement at Charlestown, Boston, dates from the same year. The next year about sixty head were shipped to the plantation, but many were lost during the voyage, of both horses and cattle. Several other shipments followed, but nothing worthy of special note, till 1635, when two Dutch ships arrived at Salem with twenty-seven mares, valued at thirty-four pounds each, and three stallions. Some writers have spoken of these mares as “Flanders mares,” but I have not been able to find any evidence or even indication that this might have been the fact. The records show they were Dutch ships, and that on a given day they sailed out of the Texel, a Dutch port, far away from Flanders. I think, therefore, we are safe in concluding they were “Dutch mares,” and they should be so designated. Just about this period they were bringing Dutch horses from Utrecht, in Holland, to the Dutch colony at New Amsterdam, and it was well known in Holland as well as in New England that the Dutch horses brought much better prices in New England than the English importations. It is probable, further, that these Dutch traders were looking out for a choice of markets, as between New England and New Netherlands. These mares were valued at thirty-five pounds each, the record says, but we are not informed as to the price that was really paid for them. There is a very wide discrepancy between the figure at which these mares were “valued”