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n early August 1727, along the 24-year-old assistant to his father, I short portage that ran from the Jacques LeNormant de Mezy, the com- riviere du nord-est [Hillsborough missaire ordonnateur of lie Royale. River] to the havre a Vanguille ["eel After the governor the commissaire harbour/7 now Savage Harbour], the was the highest-ranking official in the silence that usually held sway in the colonial hierarchy at Louisbourg. As virgin forests of lie -Jean was commissaire Mezy held the govern- broken by the clear sharp sound of ment purse-strings for both lie Royale axes echoing through the trees. Then, and lie Saint-Jean and had overall after a moment of silence, a large pine responsibility for all trade and related tree came crashing to the ground. matters. He thus had a direct interest These sounds, uncommon on Prince in this search for masts, which is prob- Edward Island at the time, came not ably why his son and second-in-com- m from any of the Island's 300 or so mand was in the party. Apart from French settlers felling trees to clear soldiers - who, we may presume, pro- farmland or to get logs for a home- vided most of the physical labour - pliitetf *-•: "i^m^m^^^0m stead. They came instead from a small there were also three "accadiens" des- and rather unusual party made up of ignated in the documents as charpen- soldiers from the Port La-Joie garrison tiers (translatable as either "carpen- as well as at least four civilians. They ters" or "shipwrights77) there to carry were acting in response to an order out the inspection. One of these was from the minister in charge of the 65-year-old Michel Hache Gallant of department of the Marine at far-off Port La-Joie, who seven years before Versailles in . In doing so they had come over with some of his fam- were carrying out an activity new to ily from Beaubassin to settle as one the Island: they were making a survey of the first Acadian families on the of large pine trees as potential masts Island. for naval ships. If their report on the Both Pensens and the elder Mezy - trees at Savage Harbour was favour- as well as the governor in Louisbourg, able it could lead to lie Saint-Jean Joseph de Saint-Ovide, had a per- becoming a supplier of masts sonal stake in the matter. Not only for the . were they keen to demonstrate an The leader of this survey party appropriate zeal in carrying out their was the senior military and adminis- official duties, they must also have trative officer for the Island, Jacques known that if the enterprise were d;Espiet de Pensens, commandant of successful, and the French navy did the 30-man garrison that had been decide to draw masts from lie Saint- posted to Port La-Joie in the previous Jean, each could benefit personally, year. Pensens, now probably in his late not only in terms of their careers, 50s, had been transferred with some but also financially, from the various reluctance from the comparative com- spin-offs - both on and under the 35^ fort of Louisbourg to the small fron- table - that might occur. However, tier post - "in a corner of the woods" as what Pensens, Mezy and Saint-Ovide he described it - when the administra- did not know was that all of their efforts would be brought to a sud- atid tion of the once more became the direct responsibility of the gov- den end two years later by a single ernment at lie Royale [Cape Breton sentence in a letter from the minister Island] after the short-lived seigneurial of the Marine. venture of the Count of Saint-Pierre;s Despite the fact that it never real- Company of lie Saint-Jean. ly got off the ground, this first offi- Also present was an official who cial effort to exploit and export the had come across from Louisbourg, timber resources of Prince Edward Sebastien LeNormant de Mezy, the Island is worthy of investigation -

10 for in miniature it represents events and circumstances that occurred on a larger scale elsewhere in Canada at various times during the French regime. And as elsewhere, it demon- strates that the local officials, on the Island and at Louisbourg, were in the grip of political and economic forces beyond their control. But before we look in detail at this enterprise of the A 1720s, it is useful to know something of the background against which it t was operating - in particular the ^f5^ nk-flp importance to France of finding a source of masts for its naval ships. **«^IK, #**% j !»,&*. I Masts and the Navies of th th Europe in the 18 Century French ship of the line, 18 century. In battle, vessels sailed bow-to-stern; or in line ahead/' in order to bring as many of their cannon as possible to bear. th In the 18 century masts were of A "ship-ofthe-line" was thus a vessel deemed capable of holding its own in a vital strategic importance to the naval large-scale sea battle. Ratings depended on the number of cannon carried. The powers of western Europe. Every largest - first rates' -had three decks and deployed at least 100 cannon. man-of-war had three masts, and in the largest, each was made up of three separate "sticks" rising one structure (closed forests produced tall the standard against which all other on top of the other. In addition, straight trees); felling, handling and trees were judged. Since the Middle 14 smaller sticks were needed for transport techniques; the time that Ages its main source had been the spars and yards. Collectively all had passed since cutting (with time the east Baltic ports, especially Riga of these sticks were called "mature" the natural resins that gave durabil- and Danzig, and from 1715 also St. in French, the smaller ones being ity evaporated); and storage condi- Petersburg, all of which lay at the termed "matereaux" The largest - tions (protection from the weather mouths of rivers that led far into the lower mainmast - ranged in size was very important - to prevent dry- the hinterland of and . from 40 inches in diameter and 123 ing out, some advocated storage in In the back forests of these coun- feet in length in a first rate ship-of- wet sand). tries, generations of landowners and the-line, to 20 inches in diameter and Because they were vital to the sur- their woodcutters had been carefully 72 feet in a frigate. vival of the ship, both in battle and in selecting trees for sale to the main All of these masts and spars had to stormy seas, European navies were naval powers of Europe, and a com- have particular properties: an exactly very particular about the masts they plex commercial network had devel- tapering straightness, a proper pro- bought. Their purchasing agents and oped to supply the demand. These portion of length to girth - the stan- the inspectors in their own dockyards "northern" masts however did not dard was three feet of length for were very rigorous in their assess- come cheap - a mast tree of the every inch in diameter at the large ments and this rigour was under- largest size could cost more than end or "heel" - suppleness, strength pinned by an innate conservatism 2000 livres or -£100, though the price and durability These in turn depend- that favoured tried and tested sup- dropped considerably as the diam- ed on properties of the tree from pliers and materials - which largely eter decreased by even a few inches. which it was cut: its species and age, meant the east Baltic ports and in However, trees capable of provid- the closeness of its grain, the amount particular Riga. ing the larger mast sizes were scarce of resin in the wood and the absence Many years' experience had even in the Baltic market and they of knots and rot. From experience revealed that only certain tree spe- became more so as each decade went such properties had been found to cies were acceptable for masts. The by. One solution developed in the vary with factors such as the country European pine [Pinus sylvestris; called dockyards was to make up the larger of origin (climate and soil were "Scots pine" in the ] was masts by shaping and joining small- considered to be important); forest considered to be the best and was er pieces, often five or nine, around

1 1 a central spindle; all bound tightly adds that if the minister gives the with iron hoops. However such "mats order "it will be easy to have enough d;assemblage" - "made masts;; to the masts brought down the river of Port English - were not considered as La-Joie to fill one or two vessels.77 good as a single sound stick. Crossing the Atlantic with Saint- Apart from using trees from their Ovide7s letter was another to the own forests - limited in quantity and, $ minister, written three days later, from experience never as good as r7 from the man who would later lead the northern masts - another solu- f* the 1727 survey party at Savage tion open to France and England |\^ Harbour, Jacques de Pensens. was to look to the vast forests While still at Louisbourg %*£* of their north Atlantic colo- planning his move to the nies; where virgin stands of tall Island for the following year, pines grew near the water's he re-enforces Saint-Ovide7s edge in much of comments by saying that he and in northern . knows the colony to have a The North American red and ^ good supply of timber which white pines [Pinus resinosa and could become a source of masts Pinus strobus] were tried early and and building materials for the found to be acceptable substitutes; navy and he offers to give all especially the more resinous red; which his attention in his new posting to could even exceed the European pine the exploitation of this resource. To in quality. However; the main prob- encourage the minister's approval; lem in using these trees was the wide Cross-section of a French warship, he adds that the logging operations and dangerous ocean across which . should attract Acadians to the Island - they had to be transported to the naval i.e. from the Fundy marshlands which dockyards of Europe. This could have the Treaty of Utrecht had transferred been circumvented by building vessels The 1720s Search for to British ownership in 1713. Once in the New World near the source of Masts on lie Saint-Jean they come over to the Island to cut supply but there were entrenched prej- wood; he argues, they will be likely udices; as well as economic and infra- The first mention in the available to stay on. Pensens was very aware structural factors operating against records of the 1720s masting - that the enticement of the Acadians this; and the French navy only began tion occurs a year-and-a-half before to French territory where they might to do so in a small way in the . the 1727 survey near Savage Harbour. become producers of food for the The British navy had begun get- It is found in a letter dated 18 newly-established fortress town of ting some of its larger masts in North 1725 from Governor Saint- Louisbourg; was an important element America as early as 1652; when sticks Ovide to the minister of the Marine of government policy of the largest sizes were first shipped at Versailles; 25-year-old Jean-Frederic It was not; however; either of to England. France on the other hand PhelypeauX; the Count of Maurepas. these letters that actually sparked the was much slower in utilising its North Having just been given responsibility enterprise. Before they reached the American mast resource. However, for lie Saint-Jean; Saint-Ovide writes Count of Maurepas, another letter from 1669, when the department of that he is getting reports from people had arrived on the minister's desk. It t k e Marine was set up with respon- in the colony that it has a significant VVCIO 11V7111 CI JLJLICI V^llCLllL 111 i-tCL lVXJV^llCll'C sibility for the overseas empire; the mast resource7 some of it7 he says; referred to in the correspondence as 77 navy and the ports of France; period- at a place called Trois Rivieres [the "Sieur Fleury. La Rochelle; a major ic attempts were made to explore the present Georgetown area]. He also commercial port on the Bay of Biscay, possibility of using North American reports that about two years before; was the main departure and landing pines. One of these was the venture the Count of Saint-Pierre's Company point for merchant vessels sailing that occurred on lie Saint-Jean. had cut 400 to 500 mast trees on the to and from New France, and this Island - "all" he has been told by the Sieur Fleury can only be Charles de *The French inch [pouce] and foot [pied] of charpentier involved; "of red pine; Fleury Deschambault, a member of a the 18th century were 6.6% larger than the from 50 to 75 feet inlength and up to Canadian merchant family who had English inch and foot. 24 inches in diameter/7* Saint-Ovide established himself in La Rochelle as

1 2 a banker, merchant and ship-owner. Significantly, Fleury was one of the directors of the short-lived Company of lie Saint-Jean. Although the com- pany had failed the previous year, with the loss of money to all involved, Fleury had clearly not given up his hopes for the Island. In his letter to Maurepas he claimed that "masts of any size and quantity" could be got from lie Saint-Jean, that "they are of a better quality than those of Canada," and that they would cost much less - he does not say why, La Rochelle 1762 by Joseph Vernet but presumably one factor was the shorter trans-Atlantic journey from lie Saint-Jean. found to be "full of knots, of a wide minister's directive. "The difficulties It is unlikely that Charles Fleury grain and dried out" - making them of getting masts from Canada, where had ever visited lie Saint-Jean, and completely unacceptable for use on costs are causing the price to rise thus his comments on the Island's French naval vessels. However, Fleury considerably," he writes, "cause me timber stocks are likely to have been did not give up. He attributed the to draw masts from lie Saint-Jean." partly supposition, though his claims dryness of the masts to their having This can only refer to a costly mast- are in general agreement with the been cut some time before, and it ing operation that had been on-going reports that the Company's agents appears that he urged Beauharnois along the St. Lawrence River since on the Island had sent back to France to recommend to the minister that 1724. To further speed up the process some five years earlier. Fleury added Commissaire Mezy at Louisbourg be he instructs Mezy to send him the that there were some masts from the asked to obtain a new sample of estimates of any qualified persons at Island already at La Rochelle avail- "quelques pins et epinettes rouges et Louisbourg who might undertake a able for inspection - presumably blanches7 - "a few pines and red and full-scale masting contract and says some of the masts that Saint-Ovide white spruces." that soldiers from the Port La-Joie had reported to have been cut However by 28 May, when the min- garrison should be used for the cut- before 1725. Acting on this informa- ister dispatched his annual correspon- ting - presumably both to speed the tion, the Count of Maurepas instruct- dence to his officials at Louisbourg, process, and to reduce the cost to his ed Francois de Beauharnois, the he had decided to go a step further; cash-strapped department. Marine's intendant at the naval port instead of asking for a small sample Even before Maurepas' directive of Rochefort, just eleven miles south of trees to be sent to France for inspec- arrived, Governor Saint-Ovide and of La Rochelle, to organize an inspec- tion, he directed Mezy to immedi- Commissaire Mezy were writing of tion of the masts at La Rochelle. ately organize a detailed survey of the promise shown by the Island's The inspector's report, sent back the mast resource of the Island using forests. Mezy remarked on 14 August: to the minister at Versailles on whatever experts he can find locally. "masts for topmasts* of the largest 6 , contained bad news for It is evident that something more vessels are of good quality and found Charles Fleury: the masts had been than Fleury's request had led to the in abundance on the island," and on 18 September Saint-Ovide, who had visited the colony several months earlier, commented that he was "sure that abundant quantities of good masting will be found on the island." He also writes that he had seen 300 logs that had been cut for the defunct

*At the close of the Napoleonic wars the main- topmast of a ist rate ship had a diameter of Louisbourg 1731. 21 inches and a length of 23 yards.

!3 Company of lie Saint-Jean. Thus, with offers to supply two hundred of Port La-Joie and Savage Harbour, regard to the prospect of obtaining masts from 8 to 18 inches in diam- where the defunct Company of lie masts from the Island the three men eter, ... half to be made up of masts Saint-Jean had been cutting: involved in its governance - Saint- of 12 inches or less, and half greater, having cut a dozen living trees of Ovide; Mezy and Pensens - were sing- up to 18 and 20 inches, which could different sizes, from 9 to ij and 18 ing from the same hymn-sheet - a come to about 7000 livres. We will inches in diameter, without selection, rare occurrence, especially for Saint- not use the masts cut down previ- we found them to be healthy, well Ovide and Mezy who were often in ously, most of which are worm-eaten, grown and resinous, of a fine and bitter dispute. and anyway belong to the Company tight grain, very supple, although When the minister's letter of 28 of lie Saint-Jean. some full of knots at 30 or 35 feet May arrived sometime that fall the Though 7000 livres would only have from the large end, generally straight three must have been delighted. The bought five or six large masts in the and bearing their proportions, that governor and commissaire were quick Riga market, it was a lot of money in is their length in feet at least three to reassure Maurepas that the poor the Marine's budget for lie Royale and times the diameter in inches, and results shown by the timber at La would not have been allocated lightly. the small end two-thirds the width Rochelle was not indicative of what In fact the minister's response to the of the large, all done in the presence might be found in Island forests: proposed contract, dated 10 1727, of Charles Pinet and Frangois Paris, It is not surprising that [the is entirely concerned with expense. Acadians and charpentiers. Maurepas queries whether the esti- masts]... were found to be of poor In a more general report on the mate includes the cost of delivering quality: they were from old spruce, summer's survey sent to the Count of ; the logs to a place where they can be [this conflicts with Saint-Ovide s let- Maurepas the following , embarked for France, attaches a price- ter of a year before in which he had Pensens says that in addition to list asking that Mezy get the best deal said the Company's masts were all Savage Harbour (or havre Cadocpichs possible and requires that the final of red pine!] cut from scrap material, as he calls it) - which offered "the best contract not be signed until he has which had been exposed for a long masts on the Island" - he had found a given his approval. time to damage from the open air. second harbour with fine mast trees: This must not influence your opinion And so it was that in the following havre a Yours ["Bear Harbour," later on the masts of pine that are abun- and August of 1727 we find the renamed Murray Harbour by Samuel dant on lie Saint-Jean - whose soil, party led by Pensens and the young- Holland]. However, he makes no ref- a rich red sand, should produce fine er Mezy examining pine trees near erence to the pines at Trois Rivieres and good mast material We believe Savage Harbour. In an affidavit dated mentioned by Governor Saint-Ovide those found at the waters edge are 12 August they both swear on oath two years before, and it would seem more spongy and less impregnated that in the portage between the river that he did not visit the western with the gum that gives these masts part of the Island, where in 1732 he their good quality, but those that would report very fine pine stands will be obtained a little farther from at "Malpeck." Pensens also adds that the banks of rivers will be of a much to carry out his duty as commandant better quality All the Acadian char- he needs both a shallop and a 20-ton pentiers who have made use of them vessel and requests that these be pro- tell us of their marvels.... vided out of the royal accounts. This Mezy and Saint-Ovide also will enable him, he reasons, to assist informed Maurepas that after sneak- the contractor in transporting the ing to several Acadian charpen- soldiers and their supplies to the tiers about cutting the timber, logging sites. He ends by say- the best proposal had come from ing that he is awaiting the end a man named LeComte who of a stretch of poor weather so that he and 10 addi- tional soldiers assigned French flute, 18th century. for the cutting can leave A flute was aflat-bottomed Louisburg for lie Saint-Jean vessel with a loading port to carry out the logging over in the stern. ^ the winter. In a separate

H Because of the amount of detail on this early masting operation that survives in the records of the department of the Marine in France we not only have a good

to the south-eastern corner of Savage Harbour and thence to Havre Saint-Pierre, described in Colonel Franquet;s report of 1751 and shown on Captain Hollands map of 1765. Rather it is a much shorter portage (probably following an earlier Mi'kmaq trail), shown on two early maps of the French period, that runs directly from the river to the present Maclntyres Creek. The evidence suggests that the full-scale logging operation of the following winter of 1727-1728 also occurred in this same area, and it appears to have'also been the source of at least some of the 400 to 500 masts taken earlier by the Company of lie Saint-Jean. Mezy s letter of November 1728 accompanying the mast shipment to France

been the masts taken earlier by the Count of St. Pierres' Company), and this leads |

Red pine near Savage Harbour. ring-counts from borings taken in the 1980s suggest that they originated about \

time they represent the rare survival of the same forest-type and habitat in an area The trees were cut near havre a I'anguille, modern-day Savage Harbour.

15 letter to the minister that December Mezy encloses the new contract with "Maitre" LeCompte - now designated -•--S?S^'^^^2ei5Bf^™i™2BTJ8^5E "carpenter, builder and mast-maker." As the river of Port La-Joie is too shallow to send "the King's ship" to the embarkation point, he assures Maurepas that LeComte is required lill™RiBl^^^KS^i;^ LECHAMEAU, 1720/1725 to deliver the masts to Louisbourg at Le Chameau was a sister vessel to Le Dromadaire. Note how much of the main his own expense. He also adds that and foremast were below a vessel's main deck. the estimates are in accordance with the minister's price list. The next mention of the enter- space but also because some were Why did the enterprise fail? prise comes a full year later, in "very knotty." However he cites the tes- October 1728. In the meantime Louis timony of four captains - presumably The immediate cause of the oper- LeComte had cut the mast trees near of merchant ships then at Louisbourg ation's failure was that the quality the top of the Hillsborough River and - who had been given five of the masts of the masts in the 1728 shipment transported them to Port La-Joie and and judged them very good. In their did not meet the high standards of thence to Louisbourg, where a good opinion, he writes: "knots in red pine the naval inspectors at Rochefort. number were loaded onto the King's are part of the body of the wood and The rejection of this single shipment, flute Le Dromadaire. Accompanying do not weaken the masts." He ends by however, does not explain why the them were letters. from Pensens and saying that even if there are flaws in Marine failed to carry out any fur- Mezy, which indicate that neither the wood, the low cost - 6664 livres ther surveys of the mast resource of was entirely confident in the quality including the cost of 340 pine planks lie Saint-Jean. of the shipment. Pensens7 letter in - as well as their usefulness, should To understand the reason for this particular is full of contradictions: be given consideration. we have to put the Island operation Le Dromadaire arrived at Rochefort into a wider context. The 1728 ship- The masts are of very good quali- with the mast shipment some time ment came at the tail-end of over 60 ty. They are not perfect on account of before 18 1729. Pensens'and years of surveys and trials of North many knots, which however I assure Mezy's excuses were to carry little American masts by the department you are not bad. The small masts and weight in the dockyard - the mast of the Marine. Over the years almost spars are good,... if they are found to inspectors were not so willing to all of these surveys and shipments be so at Rochefort, as I believe [they overlook what they viewed as seri- had ended in disappointment - with will be], it will be easy to obtain ous flaws. On 8 March Intendant . no masts or sub-standard masts being from lie St-Jean, the amount wanted. Beauharnois sent the minister the delivered - and always at what the ... If the masts are not as fine as report on the shipment. The masts, Marine considered to be a high cost. they ought to be, [it is because] Sieur including the small masts and spars, Especially relevant to the lie Saint- LeComte has not been able to get were found to be "full of knots and Jean operation was that it had the others because of the difficulty of the wood very dry." They "will not be misfortune to follow directly upon getting them out of the woods [due of much use" in the dockyards. Finally one of the more costly and disap- to] several impassable bogs. on 22 May, the minister sent his ver- pointing of these searches, the one He adds that when tracks are cut dict on the matter to Louisbourg. referred to obliquely by Maurepas into t l i P cit<=»c l A r h i r n VIA l i a c alr«=»prl\A UT^ ^ ^ ^ , , ^ ^ + ^ +X-.<>+ TV/TA^r on U^ ^ , T + C in his 1726 letter. For three years., -1-IXI.V^ *.xx^ o x u ^ o , wxxxv^xx xxv. xxvxo «.xxwu.v^ 1 1 c i c u u c D i o LIICLL i v i c ^ y , ao 11c u u t i s begun to do, they will be able in future it, "refrain from sending any more from 1724 to 1727, a survey party to get better material from farther such masts" - thus bringing to an had visited forests along the St. inland. It is clear from his apologies- end all future masting operations Lawrence from the Bay of Chaleur in-advance that he is trying to put the by the Marine on the Island. When and the Saguenay to the Richelieu best face on defective materials. this letter arrived at Louisbourg there River. Their reports on the resource Commissaire Mezy's letter reveals must have been a great deal of disap- were generally favourable. However, even less confidence. Only a third pointment for all of the local offi- the survey was undermined when the of the masts brought to Louisbourg cials, and especially Pensens, who masts that had been cut were consid- were loaded onto Le Dromadaire, he had devoted considerable time and ered so defective that they were not explains, partly due to lack of cargo effort to the enterprise. even embarked on the large flute sent

16 out to ship them to France. While the he would have to cut trails to get at at the dockyards at Rochefort often governor and intendant at Quebec trees farther from the water's edge. proved unusable - if it arrived at all. tried to shift the blame from the trees On top of this, labour costs in New If the Marine had analyzed the to those doing the cutting, the Count France, and especially at Louisbourg, reasons for their failure to success- of Maurepas, under pressure from the were high in comparison with the fully exploit the mast resource of New treasury to cut his budget and exas- home country due to the small size of France they might have realized, as we perated by the costs involved - "16 the skilled work force. Even though can certainly do from hindsight, that thousand livres in pure loss" - notified the Port La-Joie garrison supplement- the solution was a considerable invest- the governor in 1728 that "His Majesty ed this labour pool, the contractor had ment in the infrastructure needed to has given no indication that he intends to pay the soldiers at the going rates. support such operations - as British to carry out other [mast] surveys for Added to this was the cost of ship- entrepreneurs were later to do. And 7 a long time to come/ Indeed, the ship- ping the masts across the Atlantic. this leads us to the root of the prob- ment from lie Saint-Jean later that year This often meant the costly charter- lem; the department of the Marine would be the Marine's last attempt ing of merchant ships or assigning simply did not have the finances to to find suitable masts in the North special vessels like Le Dromadaire. invest in the infrastructure needed American . Such shipping was not always read- to exploit the mast resource, and the Since the British, after 1763, were ily available, which meant that the reason for this lay with a level of gov- to successfully obtain good quality masts might lay about in the open air ernment outside the control of the naval masts for over a century from for several years before they could Marine and its minister. many of the same areas available to be shipped - as seems to have hap- The ultimate cause of the failure the French, it would seem that the rea- pened to the 300 logs belonging to of France to exploit the mast resource son for the failure of the French gov- the Company of lie Saint-Jean and of its North American empire can be ; ernment to exploit the forests of New Fleury s masts at La Rochelle. traced to the military priorities of France cannot have been the quality Louis XIV and his great grand-son, of the timber available. Examination Louis XV, who in succession occu- of the evidence rather indicates it had pied the throne of France from 1643 more to do with what the Marine per- to 1774. Louis XIV;s political ambi- ceived as a high cost of the operations tions, and the wars in which they in combination with their failure to involved him, lay on the continent deliver a reliable product. of Europe. Though England was The cost of such enterprises was always lurking on the periphery, the indeed high. Though the timber itself Hapsburg monarchies of and was free - it was already considered were viewed as France's chief the property of the king - harvest enemies. In these wars the navy and transport was expensive because was always considered of secondary in most of the areas where the tall importance to the army, and as a pines grew there was no infrastruc- result it was chronically under-fund- ture of personnel and equipment to ed. The navy got even shorter shrift carry out logging operations. This after the accession of Louis XV in is especially true of lie Saint-Jean, 1715 when, with a rising public debt, which a 1728 census indicates had a Count of Maurepas. the finances of the Marine were population of only 297 settlers plus squeezed even further. Thus the var- 125 fishermen. Thus on the Island, as However, these costs were no high- ious ministers of the Marine were at many of the mast sites elsewhere er than would have had to be spent always trying to manage the diverse in New France, all stages of the enter- purchasing masts in the Baltic mar- responsibilities of their department prise - from the initial survey, to fell- ket. Given this, the Marine might on a severely restricted budget. ing and preparation, transport and have been satisfied if the financial Except for a brief period in the 1660s, embarkation - had to be funded by outlay had resulted in the delivery and after the accession of the more the Marine from scratch. In the lie of a reliable product. But the maxim navy-friendly Louis XVI in 1774, the Saint-Jean operation, as we have seen, "you get what you pay for" frequently Marine always had a funding prob- Pensens requested both a shallop and did not apply to masting operations lem. It was this under-funding that a 20-ton vessel, in part to support in New France - for having paid out played a key role in all the attempts the masting operation, and warned the money, the product that arrived to develop a mast supply in the New

17 About 24 years since there hap- pened afire that destroyed the great- est part of the timber: the course it ran was from the Bay of Fortune to St. Peters, from thence to the North East River, along Savage Bay Tracady Harbour and very near to Racico which in many places affords a very extraordinary appearance, particu- larly at the Carrying Place betwixt the North East Rivers and Tracady, where the burnt timber looks at a dis- tance like lofty pillars or columnes. When it came to Holland listing the best sites on the Island for mast timber he named only "Three Rivers, Bear Harbour and Malpac." The Savage Harbour pines - "with- out an equal on the island" according to Pensens - were clearly no more, or at most were among those trees visible from a distance as blackened "lofty pillars or columnes."

Sources The story of the 1720s masting operation is based on primary sources; the originals Maindeck of a French warship, 18th century. of which are found in the French Archives, with copies available at the National Archives of Canada and at the Centre for Acadian Studies in Moncton. These and World. In the end, given the limited mast inspectors at Rochefort than other sources of the period are currently funds available, it was safer for the did the shipment of 1728. being collected together in their original Marine to spend its mast budget in In the end, the impact of the oper- French (with English translation) in my the Baltic market where, even if the ation on the Island's timber resourc- Early Descriptions of the Forests of Prince masts were more expensive, their es was negligible. The felling appears Edward Island: A Source Book. Part 1: The French Period, 1534-1758 which will be quality was more certain. to have been confined to a small area available from the P.E.I. Forestry Division. Thus it was the wider strategic pol- not far from the Hillsborough River Secondary sources that I have used have icy of the French government with along the portage to Savage Harbour included the Dictionary of Canadian regard to its perceived foreign ene- [see Box]. It consisted of only a dozen Biography for all of the main participants: mies, based partly on the whims of pine trees in 1727, followed by 200 Pensens (Vol. II), Mezy the father (Vol. Ill), Mezy the son (Vol. IV), Beauharnois the king in an absolute monarchy, or so in 1728. We may thus presume /Vol TTT\ a n r l S a i " t ^ n v irlp / V o l TTT^ grnr\ that helped to save the pines of that most of the pines at Savage the Nouvelle Biographie Generale (1861) Savage Harbour and elsewhere on Harbour were left standing. However, for the Count of Maurepas. Other second- the Island from the French navy's they were not to stand for long. In ary sources have enabled me to put the axe. Whether Prince Edward Island, 1736 and 1742 there were major for- Island operation into a wider context: espe- given its small size and limited pine est fires in the north-east of the Island, cially valuable has been Forests and French forests, would have ever been able and one or both burned through Sea Power 1660-1789 by Paul W. Bamford (1956), as well as R. G. Albion's (1926) to supply a significant number of the area around Savage Harbour. Forests and Sea Power: The Timber Problem masts to the French navy is doubtful. We know this from Captain Samuel of the 1652-1862. Also useful And we will never know whether Holland's interim report of March for the general political and economic the rest of the Island's pine resource 1765 on his mapping survey of the background of the period has been Dale would have fared any better with the whole Island: Miquelons (1987) New France 1701-1744.