APPENDIX 3 
     
    
   
   
    
     THE DEPARTMENT OF THE MARINE AND 
     
     THE SEARCH FOR MASTS ON ILE SAINT-JEAN IN THE 17203. 
     
    
   
   
    
     PREFACE 
     
    
   
   
    
     A version of the following paper has already 
     
     appeared in The Island Magazine.1 It is presented 
     
     here with the addition of all of the footnotes and 
     
     references that were deleted for the Magazine 
     
     article. It utilises material from thirty-four of the 
     
     primary sources found in this sourcebook2 to tell in 
     
     a narrative format the story of the attempt by the 
     
     French department of the Marine to extract masts 
     
     for the French navy from Ile Saint-Jean in the 
     
     17205, and as well places the enterprise in a wider 
     
     historical context. 
     
    
   
   
    
     INTRODUCTION 
     
    
   
   
    
     In early August 1727 along the short portage that 
     
     ran from the riviére du nord-est (the Hillsborough 
     
     River) to the havre a l’angui/le (i.e. ’eel harbour’, 
     
     now Savage Harbourla, the silence that usually 
     
     held sway in the virgin forests of Ile Saint-Jean 
     
     was broken by the clear sharp sound of axes 
     
     echoing through the trees. Then, after a moment 
     
     of silence, a large pine tree came crashing to the 
     
     ground. 
     
    
   
   
    
     These sounds, uncommon on Prince Edward Island 
     
     at the time, came not from any of the island’s 300 
     
     or so4 French settlers felling trees to clear farmland 
     
     or to get logs for a homestead. They came instead 
     
     from a small and rather unusual party made up of 
     
     soldiers from the Port La-Joie garrison as well as 
     
     at least four civilians. They were acting in 
     
     response to an order from the minister in charge of 
     
     the department of the Marine at far-off Versailles 
     
    
   
   
    
     ‘ Sobey 2001. 
     
     2 See Endnote 2 for the 34 documents used (listed chronologically), 
     
     and Endnote 3 for a list of additional documents referred to in these, 
     
     but not found in Canadian archival sources. 
     
    
   
   
    
     3 As well as havre aux sauvages and havre a I’anguille (or aux 
     
    
   
   
    
     anguilles), Savage Harbour was also known to the French in the 
     
     1720s as havre Cadocpichs, its Mi'kmaq name. (See Rayburn 1973, 
     
    
   
   
    
     p.111.) 
     
    
   
   
    
     ‘ A census of 1728 gave a population count of 297 persons plus 125 
     
     fishermen on the island (see Clark 1959, p. 28). 
     
    
   
   
    
     161 
     
    
   
   
    
     in France. ln doing so they were carrying out an 
     
     activity new to the island: they were making a 
     
     survey of large pine trees as potential masts for 
     
     naval ships. If their report on the trees at Savage 
     
     Harbour proved to be favourable then it might lead 
     
     to Ile Saint-Jean becoming a major supplier of 
     
     masts for the French navy. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The leader of this survey party was the senior 
     
     military and administrative officer for the island, 
     
     Jacques d’Espiet de Pensens, the commandant of 
     
     the thirty-man garrison that had been posted to 
     
     Port La-Joie in the previous year.5 Pensens, now 
     
     probably in his late 5036, had been transferred 
     
     with some reluctance from the comparative 
     
     comfort of Louisbourg to the small frontier post at 
     
     Port La-Joie (”in a corner of the woods” as he 
     
     described it7), when the administration of the 
     
    
   
   
    
     island had once more became the direct 
     
     responsibility of the government at lle Royale 
     
     [Cape Breton Island] after the short-lived 
     
    
   
   
    
     seigneurial venture of the Count of Saint-Pierre’s 
     
     Company of He Saint-Jean. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Also present in the party was an official who had 
     
     come across from Louisbourg, Sébastien Le 
     
     Normant de Mézy, the 24 year old assistant to his 
     
     father, Jacques Le Normant de Mézy, the 
     
     commissaire ordonnateur of Ile Royale. After the 
     
     governor the commissaire was the highest ranking 
     
     official in the colonial hierarchy at Louisbourg, and 
     
     as commissaire, the elder Mézy held the 
     
     government purse-strings for both Ile Royale and 
     
     lie Saint-Jean and had overall responsibility for all 
     
     trade and related matters. He thus had a direct 
     
     interest in this search for masts, which is probably 
     
     why his son and second-in-command was in the 
     
     party.8 Apart from soldiers — who, we may 
     
    
   
   
    
     5 Maude 1969. 
     
     6 Maude 1969. 
     
    
   
   
    
     7 Governor Saint-Ovide (1726: 20 November) reported that Pensens 
     
     considered himself in his new posting as "exiled dans un coin de Boix 
     
    
   
   
    
     without spiritual or temporal help, which does not agree with either his 
     
     health or his age“. 
     
    
   
   
    
     8 That the Mézy present at Savage Harbour is the younger Mézy (the 
     
     scrivener) and not his father (the commissaire) is confirmed both by 
     
     Pensen’s affidavit of 12 August 1727, and by a letter of the elder