presume, provided most of the physical labour — 
     
     there were also three ’accadiens', who were to 
     
     carry out the inspection, designated in the 
     
     documents as charpentiers (translatable as either 
     
     carpenters or Shipwrights). One of these was the 
     
     sixty-five year old Michel Haché Gallant9 of Port 
     
     La-Joie, who seven years before had come over 
     
     with some of his family from Beaubassin to settle 
     
     as one of the first Acadian families on the island. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Both Pensens and the elder Mézy — as well as the 
     
     governor in Louisbourg, Joseph de Saint-Ovide, 
     
     had a personal stake in the matter. Not only were 
     
     they keen to demonstrate an appropriate zeal in 
     
     carrying out their official duties, they must also 
     
     have known that if the enterprise were successful, 
     
     and the Marine did decide to draw masts for the 
     
     French navy from lle Saint-Jean, each of them 
     
     could benefit personally, not only in terms of their 
     
     careers, but also financially, from the various spin- 
     
     offs — both on and under the table — that might 
     
     OCCur. 
     
    
   
   
    
     What Pensens, Mézy and Saint-Ovide did not 
     
     know in the summer of 1727 was that all of their 
     
     efforts would be brought to a sudden end two 
     
     years later by a single sentence in a letter to 
     
     Commissaire Mézy from the minister of the 
     
     Marine, telling them not to send any more masts 
     
     to France from lle Saint-Jean.1o 
     
    
   
   
    
     Despite the fact that it never really got off the 
     
     ground, this first officially sponsored effort to 
     
     exploit and export the timber resources of Prince 
     
     Edward Island, is worthy of investigation — 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 demonstrates 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 1720s it is useful to know something of the 
     
     background against which it was operating — in 
     
    
   
   
    
     Mézy of 14 September 1727. One of the son’s responsibilities was 
     
     the inspection of soldiers on detached duty (Pritchard 1979), which 
     
     could have been an additional reason for him visiting the island. 
     
    
   
   
    
     9 Pensens 1727: 12 August. I calculate his age from data in White 
     
     (1999) (Volume 2, p. 791). 
     
    
   
   
    
     1° Maurepas 1729: 22 May, to Mézy. 
     
    
   
   
    
     162 
     
    
   
   
    
     particular the importance to France of finding a 
     
     source of masts for its naval ships. 
     
    
   
   
    
     MASTS AND THE NAVIES OF EUROPE 
     
     IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
     
    
   
   
    
     in the eighteenth century masts were of vital 
     
     strategic importance to the naval powers of 
     
     western Europe. Every man—of—war had three 
     
     masts, and in the largest ships each of these was 
     
     made up of three separate 'sticks’ rising one on 
     
     top of the other, plus fourteen smaller sticks were 
     
     needed for the spars and yards. Collectively all of 
     
     these sticks were called ’méture’ in French, the 
     
     smaller ones being termed ’météreaux’“. The 
     
     largest of these masts — the lower mainmast — 
     
     ranged in size from forty inches in diameter and 
     
     123 feet in length in a first rate ship-of-the-line”, 
     
     to twenty inches in diameter and 72 feet in a 
     
     frigate.13 
     
    
   
   
    
     All of these masts and spars had to have particular 
     
     properties: an exactly tapering straightness”, a 
     
     proper proportion of length to girth (the standard 
     
     was three feet of length for every inch in diameter 
     
     at the large end or ‘heel"5), suppleness, strength 
     
     and durability‘s. These in turn depended on 
     
     properties of the tree from which it was cut: its 
     
     species and age, the closeness of its grain”, the 
     
     amount of resin in the wood”, and the absence of 
     
     knots and of rot. From experience such properties 
     
     had been found to vary with factors such as the 
     
     country of origin (climate and soil were considered 
     
     to be important”), the forest structure (closed 
     
    
   
   
    
     11 Littré (1969) Dicfionnaire de la Langue Francaise. 
     
    
   
   
    
     ‘2 A ‘ship—of-the-line' was a warship capable of participating in a full- 
     
     scale sea battle, so called because during the battle the ships on 
     
     each side were arranged in ‘line ahead'. The rating of the ship 
     
     depended on the number of cannons it carried - a ‘first rate' had at 
     
     least 100 cannons on three decks (McGowan 1980, p. 12). 
     
    
   
   
    
     13 The value for a first-rate ship is from a French document of 1722, 
     
     cited by Bamford (1956) (p. 12); the frigate value is from Albion 
     
     (1926) (p. 28) and is for the Napoleonic period. 
     
    
   
   
    
     1‘ Albion 1926, p. 28. 
     
    
   
   
    
     15 
     
    
   
   
    
     Bamford 1956, p. 12, fn 12. 
     
    
   
   
    
     16 
     
    
   
   
    
     Albion 1926, p. 30; Bamford 1956, pp. 12-13. 
     
    
   
   
    
     17 
     
    
   
   
    
     Bamford 1926, pp. 12—13. 
     
    
   
   
    
     18 
     
    
   
   
    
     Albion 1926, p. 30; Bamford 1956, p. 135. 
     
    
   
   
    
     19 
     
    
   
   
    
     Albion 1926, p. 30.