38 THEISLAND ACADIANS 
     
    
   
   
    
     fishermen were born in France, usually originating from the provinces 
     
     of Normandy, Brittany, Saintonge and Gascony. In addition to the 
     
     fishermen who had settled permanently on the Island, there were 
     
     also sailors and other fishermen who would go back to France after 
     
     the fishing season was over. According to the census of 1734, there 
     
     were 163 of these men in Havre Saint Pierre alone. The settlement 
     
     also included three ploughmen, a blacksmith, a surgeon and a car- 
     
     penter. Six of the permanent fishermen were also farming the land’*'. 
     
     Only a few Acadians lived in Havre Saint Pierre. The Acadians, who 
     
     were primarily farmers, established their own communities elsewhere 
     
     on the Island. 
     
    

    
     Relations were often tense among the people of Havre Saint 
     
     Pierre. Indeed, the Commandant de Pensens or one of his officers 
     
     frequently had to settle differences between the merchants, the inhab- 
     
     itants and the fishermen*’. De Pensens wrote that the fishermen on 
     
     the north coast were “people without discipline” (TR)*? and “a people 
     
     who avoided only too easily obedience and discipline (TR)**. 
     
    

    
     It should be said that the French government did not do much 
     
     to encourage the expansion of the fishery on fle Saint Jean. In fact 
     
     the development of this tiny colony never constituted a priority during 
     
     the French regime. The authorities were concerned mainly that the 
     
     colony on fle Royale, and the fortress of Louisbourg, located there be 
     
     strong enough to defend the French colonies in North America. Despite 
     
     this policy, the fishermen living on fle Saint Jean succeeded in catching 
     
     codfish, but not without difficulties. Some of them were employed 
     
     by local merchants, while others were independent and sold their 
     
     catches to merchants from Louisbourg or France. 
     
    

    
     Vessels came from both these places to fish off the Island. They 
     
     also took the opportunity to trade with the inhabitants. In 1731, 
     
     Robert Poitier Dubuisson, the assistant deputy of the intendant, stated 
     
     in a letter to the Minister of the Colonies that “two ships of about 
     
     one hundred tons had come directly from France to this island for 
     
     two years in succession, last year from Granville and this year from 
     
     Bordeaux, to fish for cod and to trade with the inhabitants” (TR)*. 
     
     We learn from a letter, the following year by Lenormant de Mezy from 
     
     Louisbourg that a ship commanded by Captain Mathé went to Havre 
     
     Saint Pierre to pick up the cod caught by the employees on the ten 
     
     shallops belonging to Jean-Pierre Roma**.