All real estate acquired or purchased by the industry of the
proprietors and members, (meaning of course without the limits
of the plantation,) shall be their sole property and estate,
and may be held or conveyed by deed, will, or otherwise.

If any Indian or other person shall cut or take away any wood,
timber, or other property, on any lands _belonging_ to the
proprietors or members, which is not set off; or if any person
not a proprietor or member, shall do the same on lands that
have been set off, or commit any other trespass, they shall
be fined not over $200, or imprisoned not over two years.
The Indians are declared competent witnesses to prove the
trespass. No Indian or other person is to cut wood without
a permit in writing, signed by two Overseers, expressing the
quantity to be cut, at what time and for what purpose; and the
permit must be recorded in their proceedings before any wood
or timber shall be cut.

[Of this provision, the Indians greatly complain, because it
gives them no more privilege in cutting their own wood than a
stranger has, and because under it, as they say, the Overseers
oblige them to pay a dollar or more a cord for all the wood
they are permitted to cut, which leaves them little or no
profit, and compels the industrious to labour merely for
the support of the idle, while the white men, who have their
teams, vessels, &c. can buy their permits and cut down the
wood of the plantation in great quantities, at much greater
profit than the Indian can do, who has nothing but his axe,
and must pay these white men a dollar or more for carting his