Timber exports to the West Indies — Patrick M'Robert (1776), who spent six weeks walking around the island, is the first to mention the shipping of timber from the island to the West Indies: he said that 'timber’ (as well as fish and oil) was exported from Robert Clark’s settlement at New London Bay to the West Indies (as well as to England, and ’up the Mediterranean’).‘"’20 We also have the dubious comment of Hollingsworth (1787), a writer who never actually visited the island, that ”large tracts of woods have been cut down, and a part of them already exported to the British West Indies”. Despite both of these comments, the West Indies seems to have never been more than a minor and occasional market for island timber, the only other mentions being that of John Cambridge who in the 1818 edition of his pamphlet stated that ”some lumber” was exported to the West Indies”, and Samuel Hill in 1839 who said that the exports to the West Indies were ”much the same as those to Newfoundland", he having just listed the wood exports to Newfoundland as comprising 'boards’, 'shingles’, 'staves’, and ’spars'm. However, I suspect that the finding of De Jong and Moore (1994), that between 1802 and 1816 only two vessels cleared directly from the island for the West Indies“, is the better indicator, and that the level of the island’s wood trade to the West Indies was never very important.“4

Timber exports to Newfoundland — Though there are only a few references among the recorders to the island’s timber trade to Newfoundland, it seems to have been far more important than that to the West Indies. John Stewart (1806) said that

62° This is in agreement with the aspirations contained in a

pamphlet, published anonymously but seemingly the work of Robert Clark (1779) himself, that aimed to entice immigrants to the New London settlement, which said that it was “well situated for an extensive trade to the West-India Islands, and other Markets, for lumber etc".

62‘ [Cambridge] 1818. We can give little weight to the statement in the same year of Anon. (1818) that “the lumber trade to the West Indies is great timber being got at the door”, since that account is full of misinformation.

5” Hill 1839.

623 De Jong and Moore 1994, p. 30. 62“ This would seem to be confirmed by Lower (1938) (p. 65) in his chapter titled “Forest Industries of the Maritime Provinces in relation to the West Indies", in which he says that Prince Edward Island never had "a great deal [of trade in lumber] with the West Indies and it may therefore be at once dismissed [from the subjecfl".

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’some timber' was exported to Newfoundlandezs, while John Cambridge (1818) also listed ’lumber’ as one of the island’s exports to that island (as also to Nova Scotia). The only other comment on this trade is Samuel Hill’s in 1839 that "the exports to Newfoundland have chiefly consisted of boards sawn at the water mills in the island, shingles, the best of which are made of white cedar, and staves, [and] spars" — he also observed that the exports to Newfoundland ”have usually been more profitable than those to Great Britain". The validity of this last statement is questionable: what is required is a detailed study of the island custom records in order to assess the magnitude and value of the Newfoundland trade. My limited examination of the records from 1802 to 1808 indicate that much of the wood shipped from the island to Newfoundland was even then (more than 30 years before Hill's comment) in the form of sawn or processed lumber products: shingles, clapboards, 'handspikes’m, boards, planks, staves, ’scantling’626 and spars are listed among the cargoes.627 Also, it is evident that just when the British timber trade began its great increase in 1808, so also did the trade to Newfoundland pick up, with fourteen trips being made that year, compared with a maximum of five in any of the previous six years. This rise must have been a side-effect of the increase in ’timber—making’ on the island for the trans-Atlantic trade - for it is evident that in 1808 ton timber made a much greater contribution to the island's wood exports to Newfoundland than it had in the six years previously.628

6’5 Elsewhere Stewart (1806) explained that Newfoundland

needed to import wood because “the timber [was] now generally at such a distance from the harbours as to make it very expensive".

525 The O.E.D. (Oxford 1989) defines a ‘handspike' as a “wooden

bar used as a lever or crow. It is rounded at one end, by which it is held, and square at the other, and is usually shod with iron"; ‘scantling’ refers to “small beams or pieces of wood".

627 My examination of the island custom records between 1802 and 1808 revealed that 19 different vessels carrying wood cleared island customs on 31 different occasions bound for Newfoundland, all for St. John‘s (the same vessels also sometimes carrying farm produce and livestock): 1802 - no vessels; 1803 - 4; 1804 - 5; 1805 - 3; 1806 - 1; 1807 - 4; 1808 - 14. The wood-types and the number of times they are named in the records are: pine - 16 times (ton timber [10 times], round timber [1], boards or lumber [5]); spruce - 5 times (ton timber [2]; spars [2], and staves [1]); birch - 4 times (ton timber [1]; planks [2], and handspikes [1]); black birch - 3 times (ton timber [2]; bark [1]); maple - twice (as ton timber); fir - once (as staves); oak - once (as staves). [PARO: R.G. 9: Collector of Customs. Shipping outwards, all points,1802-1827].

62” In 1808 there are 15 listings of ton timber (most of it pine), and 18 of other wood items. From 1802 to 1807 there had been only 7 listings of ton timber and 24 others [PAROI R.G. 9: Collector of Customs. Shipping outwards, all points,1802-1827].