88 The French in Prince Edward Island

on the part of Roma of the necessity of communica- tion. If he left the fallen trees across the way, he at least had the branches cut off and the straggling firs removed so that the eye could travel straight in front even if one had “to lift the leg slightly to get over on the other side” of the fallen giants of the bush.**

Such then was the establishment which Roma had designed and built at Three Rivers. While enumerat- ing with wearisome detail the number of hours’ labor which he was able to employ, he says that the econ- omy of time and movement in work, the method of operating each work promptly, the aid of new tools, the care taken to employ each man on what he could do best, the different devices for exciting gaiety in work and stimulating the workers, in a word the eye of the master have made up three-quarters of the entire labor, and he modestly adds, “If without speaking of an infinity of lesser works to which divers conditions have led and which ought not to exist, such as care of the sick, the poultry, and the stock, if I say one adds to the works which have been men- tioned the care and time which writing demands, itself enough for a porter, one will find that the Com- pany has been served by some people who have not had time to be bored.”

In the eyes of Roma his establishment was to be- come the headquarters not only of a contented colony but also of a far-reaching commerce and an exten- sive fishery.** The five vessels of the Company—Le

11 F, Vol. 148, p. 70. 12 C11 IV, Vol. 16, p. 174.