which could even exceed the European pine in quality.34 However, the main problem in using these trees was the wide and dangerous ocean across which they had to be transported to the naval dockyards of Europe. This could have been circumvented by building the whole ship in the New World near the source of supply, but there were entrenched prejudices, as well as economic and infra-structural factors operating against this”, and the French navy only began to do so in a small way in the 1740s.36

The English navy had begun getting some of its larger masts in North America as early as 1652, and thereafter, as a supplement to the Baltic supply, sticks of the largest sizes were shipped annually to England from New Hampshire and Maine, and after 1763 from Canada.37 France on the other hand was much slower in utilising its North American mast resource. However, from 1669, when the department of the Marine was set up38 with responsibility for the overseas empire and the navy (as well as for the ports of France). periodic attempts were made to explore the possibility of using North American pines. One of these was the venture that occurred on lle Saint- Jean in the 17205.

THE 1720s SEARCH FOR MASTS ON lLE SAINT-JEAN

The first mention in the available records of the 17205 masting operation on lle Saint-Jean occurs a year and a half before the survey near Savage Harbour in August 1727 described above: it is

3‘ Albion 1926, p. 30; Elwes & Henry 1910, Vol. VI: p. 1142. Albion, p. 31: "The soft and white wood of the white pine proved to be inferior in strength and durability to that of the Pinus sylvestris of Riga; however what white pine lacked in quality was counteracted by the fact that it could provide large sizes that made possible the use of a single stick for masts of the largest ships, with the added advantage that they were lighter by one-fourth.” Bamford (1956, p. 126, in. 72): “The French had the very same opinion of the comparative merits of the Canadian red and white pine as the British had later."

35 See Albion (1926) (pp. 24446) for the English attitude and experience of colonial built warships. Economic factors came into play because none of the North American oak species was considered as durable as European oak — oak was the principal wood used in the hull.

3“ Bamford 1956 p. 125, fn. 71. See also Eccles (1964) (p. 53) for ship—building attempts in Canada in the 16605, and the economic factors discouraging it, and Miquelon (1987) (pp. 216-218) for the eighteenth century.

3’ Albion 1926. p. 31.

3“ Miquelon 1956, p. 88.

164

found in a letter of 18 December 172539 from the governor at Louisbourg, Joseph de Saint-Ovide, to the minister of the Marine at Versailles, the 25 year old Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, the Count of Maurepas. Having just been given responsibility for lie Saint-Jean, Saint-Ovide writes that he is getting reports from people on the island that it has a significant mast resource, some of it, he says, at a place called Trois Riviéres (the present- day Georgetown area). He also reports that about two years before, the Count of Saint-Pierre’s Company had cut 400 to 500 mast trees on the island, ”all", he has been told by the charpentier involved, ”of red pine, from 50 to 75 feet in length and up to 24 inches in diameter”4°. Saint-Ovide adds that if the minister gives the order ”it will be easy to have enough masts brought down the river of Port La-Joie (i.e. the Hillsborough River) to fill one or two vessels”.

Crossing the Atlantic with Saint-Ovide's letter was another letter to the minister written three days later, from the man who was later to lead the 1727 survey party at Savage Harbour, Jacques de Pensens“. Having recently been appointed as commandant at Port La-Joie, and while still at Louisbourg planning his move to the island for the following year, he re-enforces Saint-Ovide’s comments by saying that he knows the island to have a good supply of timber which could become a source of masts and building materials for the navy, and since, as he put it, ”the King has a need for such timber”, he offers to give all his attention in his new posting to the exploitation of this resource. To encourage the minister’s approval, he adds that the logging operations should attract Acadians to the island (he means from the Fundy marshlands which the Treaty of Utrecht had transferred to British ownership thirteen years before), and he says that once they have come over to cut wood, they will be likely to stay on. Pensens was very aware that the enticement of the Acadians to French territory, where they might become producers of food for the recently established fortress town of Louisbourg, was an important element of government policy.

’9 Saint-Ovide 1725: 18 December.

‘0 The French inch (pouce) and foot (pied) of the eighteenth century were larger (by 6.3%) than the English inch and foot (eg. see Bamford 1956, p. 11 and Pritchard 1995, p. xvi.)

‘1 Pensens 1725: 21 December.