abundant wood resources of the island. Exploitation of the island’s timber was certainly an important element in the enterprises initiated by two of the early active proprietors, Robert Clark at New London and James Montgomery at Stanhope and Three Rivers, though both would lose a great deal of money in their ventures. However, those timber entrepreneurs who arrived from the British Isles after the changed economic circumstances brought about by the Napoleonic Wars, men such as Thomas Chanter, Joseph Pope and James Peake, who had no prior holdings or responsibilities on the island in the form of large grants of land, would thrive in the timber business and in its offshoot, ship-building. Also drawn to the island by the timber resources was a more humble group of craftsmen, represented in the records by the artisans Thomas Curtis and Benjamin Chappell, who came to the island on account of their manual skills in working with wood, and who hoped to use these skills to make a new career for themselves in the New World. All of these men, both the early proprietors, and the later timber merchants and ship-builders, as well as the artisans, brought with them pre- existing attitudes to timber and wood, and thus also to the forests that produced them. Just as did the farmer-settlers, all of them would also acquire new attitudes to the forest and its products in the New World: for the manual workers this may have been as basic as finding out which of the trees found on the island were suited for particular purposes, while for the entrepreneurs, it may have been which trees provided the timber most valuable for shipping to the home country, as well as the locations of suitable stands of such trees and the harvest and processing methods that were best suited for each species. The new attitudes and points of view that all of these new arrivals to the island acquired were often specific to the conditions of the island, and would range over a wide variety of topics, not just the beneficial properties of the island's forest but also its undesirable aspects. It is these various attitudes, as expressed in the written records, to all aspects of the forest and its products, that I will now review in the final part of this report. 114 THE UTILITARIAN ATTITUDE The forest as a source of materials — The view of the island’s forests as a provider of valuable resource materials, especially of timber, both for local use and for export, and of wood for fuel, underlies most of the British period records, and it is this outlook which provides the basis for most of the topics that have been discussed up to now in this report. Even in the period before the settlement of the island had begun, it is the only attitude that is expressed by those assigned to survey the island: the anonymous officer of 1762, with his comments on ”serviceable timber” and "fine Ship Timber”,‘and Captain Samuel Holland in 1765, with his classification of the ’quality' of the woods on each township as 'good’, 'very good’, ’indifferent' and so on.768 It is also the attitude expressed especially by the proprietors, who from 1767 were given ownership of that resource“, and by the agents whom they hired to act as overseers of their propertym. It is the attitude of the officials of the island’s government who attempted to protect that resource from theft and fire”, and it is an attitude that pervades many of the accounts and handbooks that describe the island for prospective immigrants, accounts in which the forest is extolled as a source of fuel and building materials’", as well as of timber that may be sold to pay the farm rent or for monetary gainm. And, though not written down on paper in specific words by them, it is also the attitude that underlay the practical actions of persons ’58 Anon. 1762; Holland 1764; 1765 (March 8. October), and ‘Plan’. ’69 Anon. 1768; Desbrisay 1770-1772; [Clark] 1779; Anon. 1789; Seymour 1840; Land Commission 1875: evidence of J, F. Stewart, H. C. Douse, J. Douse; and John Yeo. 77° Gray 1793; Palmer 1815; 1816; Land Commission 1875: G. W. DeBlois; and R. P. Haythorne. The importance of agents as overseers of the forest is also evident in the journal of the proprietor Sir George Seymour (1840). 7“ House of Assembly 1773-1849: see the acts of 1780 and 1833; and the proclamation of 1815; all of which aimed to protect the island's ‘valuable timber‘ from fire and theft. Also, Gamaliel Smethurst (1774) was acting in his capacity as ‘Deputy Surveyor of Woods‘ for Nova Scotia (to which at that time the island belonged), when he attempted in 1768 to gather evidence to initiate a prosecution against individuals who were felling pine trees at Three Rivers. 772 For example, [Clark] 1779; [Cambridge] 1796?; Anon 1808; [Hill] 1819; MacGregor 1828, 1832; Hill 1839, m This is stressed by [Hill] (1819) who; no less than four times. mentions that new settlers could cut and sell timber; it is also stated by Anon. (1818) and is implied by [Cambridge] (1796?).