letter“, addressed jointly to the governor and the commissaire, he directed Mézy to organise as soon as possible a detailed survey of the mast resource of Tie Saint-Jean using whatever experts he could find locally. As well he requested that both Saint- Ovide and Pensens send him their own reports based on their personal observations during their visits to the island. It is evident from his letter that something more than Fleury’s memorandum had led to the minister’s directive: ”the difficulty of getting masts from Canada, along with expenses that would increase the price considerably, will lead me to get them from lle Saint-Jean”. This can only be a reference to a costly masting operation that had been on-going along the St. Lawrence River since 1724.53 To further speed up the process the minister asked that Mézy also send him the estimates of any qualified persons at Louisbourg who might be interested in undertaking a full-scale masting contract. In an earlier letter to BeauharnoisS4 Maurepas had also directed that soldiers from the detachment at Port La-Joie should be used for the cutting — presumably to both speed the process, and to reduce the cost to his chronically under-funded department.

It took some time for this directive to reach Louisbourg — it certainly had not arrived by 18 September 1726. In the meantime Jacques de Pensens and 26 soldiers had travelled to lle Saint— Jean in June and had officially taken over the government of the island and its 'capitol’ of Port La-Joiess. At the same time Governor Saint-Ovide had also paid his first official visit to the island, when he had handed out muskets and gifts to the Mi’kmaq, many of whom had come over from the mainland to meet him.56

At the end of the summer, in their letters to the Count of Maurepas, both Governor Saint—Ovide and Commissaire Mézy — still unaware of the directive from Maurepas on its way — re-enforced the comments of Saint-Ovide and Pensens of the previous December about the quality of the masts that might be obtained from lle Saint-Jean: Mézy, relaying information received from Saint—Ovide on

52 Maurepas 1726: 28 May to Saint-Ovide and Mézy.

53 See: Fauteux 1927. Vol. I, pp. 200-10; and Bamford 1956, pp. 123-24.

5‘ Maurepas 1726: 16 April to Beauharnois. 5" Maude 1969.

5“ Pothier 1974.

166

his summer visit, wrote on 14 August“: ”masts for topmasts58 of the largest vessels are of good quality and found in abundance on the island”; and on 18 September Saint-Ovide himself, wrote59 that from his June visit he was ”sure that abundant quantities of good masting will be found on the island”. He also said that he had ”seen 300 logs that had been cut for the Company” — meaning the defunct Company of ile Saint-Jean — these may have been among the 400 to 500 that he had earlier reported cut by the Company, perhaps at the same time as the La Rochelle sample that had already been turned down by the naval inspector. Thus, with regard to the prospect of obtaining masts from lle Saint-Jean all three men involved in its governance (Governor Saint-Ovide, Commissaire Mézy and Commandant Pensens) were singing from the same hymn-sheet — a rare occurrence, especially for Saint-Ovide and Mézy, who were often in bitter dispute over many matters.60

When the minister’s letter of 28 May arrived at Louisbourg — some time after 18 September — it must have been greeted with great delight by all three officials. In response the governor and commissaire sent a joint letter to Maurepas on 28 November61 in which they added further excuses to that given earlier by Sieur Fleury for the failure of the inspection at La Rochelle the previous April:

It is not surprising that [the masts]... were found to be of poor quality: they were from old spruce [epinette] (this conflicts with Saint-Ovide’s letter of a year before in which he had said the Company’s masts were all of red pine!)‘”, cut from scrap material, which had been exposed for a long time to damage from the open air. This must not influence your opinion on the masts of pine that are abundant on lie St-Jean — whose sail, a rich red sand, should produce fine and good mast material. We believe those found at the water’s

5’ Mézy1726: 14August.

5" The topmast was the middle of the three ‘sticks' forming a mast. Albion (1926) (p. 28) gives a diameter of 21 inches and a length of 23 yards for the main-topmast of a first rate ship at the close of the Napoleonic wars.

5" Saint-Ovide1726: 18 September. 6" Crowley 1974.

6‘ Saint-Ovide a. Mézy 1726: 28 November: Letter 1. 62 I suspect that the source of Saint-Ovide's change of mind on the species was Fleury's ‘mémoire', a copy of which accompanied the 28 May directive from Maurepas.