Jean and for this we have only scattered bits of information that turn up several years later in correspondence connected with the second government-sponsored attempt to extract masts. What we learn is that sometime between 1720 and 1723, 400 to 500 masts had been cut by the Company, of which 200 had been further worked on, including the removal of their bark.96 They were reported to be from 50 to 75 feet in length and up to 24 inches in diameter and appear to have all been of red pine. Some of these, if not all, had been cut along the portage that ran from the North-east River to Savage Harbour, the same site where the later government harvest of masts took place in 1727 and 1728. An unknown number of these 500 logs reached La Rochelle in France where in April 1726, at the instigation of Charles Fleury Deschambault”, a La Rochelle merchant who was also a director of the Company of lle Saint—Jean, they were inspected by the mast inspector from the naval dockyard of nearby Rochefort who rejected them because they were "full of knots, of a wide grain and dried out” — properties making them unsuitable for French naval ships.98 Two months after this inspection, in June 1726, Governor Saint-Ovide, while on his first visit to lle Saint-Jean to officially assume authority over the island after the collapse of the Company, reported seeing over 300 logs belonging to the Company still on the island — presumably those of the 500 logs that had not been further worked on — at least the arithmetic agrees.99 Later, on hearing of the rejection of the masts at La Rochelle by the inspector, Saint-Ovide said that he was not surprised, as they were all of ’old spruce' [épinette]100 — which contradicts his statement of the previous year that all of the Company’s masts were of red pine.

We have much more reliable information on the later government-sponsored venture — in fact so many records on this operation survive in the archives of the Marine that it is possible to follow it closely at all stages and to analyse in detail the various factors involved (see Appendix 3). This operation began with what was intended to be a total survey of the mast resource of the island. The actual felling that resulted appears to have

96 Saint-Ovide 1725; Maurepas 1726: 28 May. 97 Maurepas 1726: 1 March.

9“ Beauharnois 1726: 6April.

99 Saint-Ovide 1726: 18 September.

‘°° Saint-Ovide 1721;: 28 November, Letter 1.

been confined to a small area not far from the Hillsborough River along the same portage to Savage Harbour where the Company had earlier made its cuts. The harvest consisted of a preliminary sample in August 1727 of about a dozen pine trees cut to ascertain their quality — which was deemed to be satisfactory — followed by the felling by a contractor of about 200 trees during the winter of 1727-1728. According to a preliminary draft of the contract they were to be between 8 and 18 inches in diameter, with half to be under 12 inches and half above.101 From a later letter it appears that these were also all of red pine.102 However, when the masts (about a third of those cut) arrived in France in January 1729, they were also turned down by the mast inspectors at Rochefort for reasons very similar to the rejection three years before of those of the Company: they were found to be ”full of knots and the wood very dry, and would not be of much use” in the dockyards.103 Thereafter during the French period, the Marine made no further attempts to export, or even to further survey, the mast resource of the island — or anywhere else in New France for that matter. However, the reason had more to do with financial constraints operating on the Marine than on any reliable knowledge of the quality of the island’s mast resource (see Appendix 3). Thus in the end, the attempts by both the Company of lle Saint-Jean and the department of the Marine to harvest mast trees on the island came to nought, and the impact of either of the operations on the island’s mast resource was negligible.

The only other timber export from lle Saint-Jean to France that l have come across in the records concerns 340 pine planks (136 of two inches and 204 of three inches) that were shipped with the 1729 masts.‘°4 Although the inspector at Rochefort reported these to be ”well-made and of the quality of those of Quebec”, the minister declined to order further shipments of planks from the island because, he said, their cost was a sixth higher than spruce planks obtained elsewhere.”5

There is one more reference to the export of island timber to France but it is one that never got

“" Saint-Ovide 1726: 28 November. Letter 1.

”’2 Me’zy 1728.

103

Beauharnois 1729.

1°“ Beauharnois 1729.

105

Maurepas 1729: 22 May (to Pensens); 22 May (to Mézy).