APPENDIX 4 
     
    
   
   
    
     THE GRAND SCHEME OF BOULAYE : A PROPOSAL IN 1733 FOR THE 
     
     EXPLOITATION OF THE TIMBER RESOURCES OF ILE SAINT—JEAN. 
     
    
   
   
    
     A rather peculiar document‘ that survives in the 
     
     records of the department of the Marine indicates 
     
     that four years after the cancellation of any further 
     
     mast shipments from lle Saint-Jean by the minister 
     
     of the Marine, the Count of Maurepas, in 17292, 
     
     not everyone in France had given up on the 
     
     island’s timber stocks. In 1733 someone writing 
     
     in Paris and signing himself ’de la Boulaye’, who 
     
     seems to have been an official in the Marinea, 
     
     wrote a memorandum in which he proposed a new 
     
     scheme for the exploitation of the island’s timber 
     
     stocks. His proposal concerns wood ‘of all kinds’ 
     
     rather than just the mast resource of the 1727- 
     
     1728 venture. Although transparently naive in its 
     
     conception, it gives a useful insight into some of 
     
     the economic and infra-structural factors that had 
     
     to be taken into consideration in any exploitation 
     
     of the timber resources of New France. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Boulaye’s plan is for the exploitation of the timber 
     
     resources of lle Saint-Jean for use by both the 
     
     French navy and the merchant fleet. The 
     
     advantage of his proposal, he says, is that it will 
     
     save the king a great deal of money — presumably 
     
     in the budget of the Marine. His proposal is based 
     
     on an exaggerated estimate of the size of the 
     
     timber resources of the island that is clearly not 
     
     derived from any reliable survey work: 
     
    
   
   
    
     timber is in such great abundance that all 
     
     those who have examined it give assurance that 
     
     this island alone can provide for more than fifty 
     
     years all the wood needed for both the navy and 
     
     the merchant fleet: the planks of fir [sap] and 
     
     spruce [prusse], the construction timber (or 
     
     possibly staves) [merain], pitch [brai] and tar 
     
     [goldron, (i.e. goudronll, enough to supply even 
     
     Spain [an ally of France at the time]. 
     
    
   
   
    
     ‘ Boulaye 1733: 11 February. [PAC,AC, c“B, Vol. 14, fols. 389- 
     
     390v] 
     
    
   
   
    
     2 See Appendix 3. 
     
    
   
   
    
     3 This Boulaye, assuming it is the same man, seems to have been 
     
     responsible for other similar general memoranda: e.g. 1 March 
     
     1716: “Mémoire on the subject of the beaver pelts that come from 
     
     Canada, history of this trade" [PAC, ArchiviaNet: MG 8, A1 (only 
     
     the title of the document is given)]; 29 May 1729 at Paris: “Mémoire 
     
     on the methods of making Canada productive and useful to the 
     
     Kingdom’i [PAC, AC c“A, Vol. 51 fols. 471—471v]. 
     
    
   
   
    
     But Boulaye is also looking beyond the timber 
     
     resource to a more distant future: he foresees the 
     
     land, once cleared of trees, being put to useful 
     
     agricultural production that can be exported to 
     
     France: 
     
    
   
   
    
     We are assured that the soil of this island is so 
     
     fertile for wheat and hemp“, that the crops that 
     
     have been harvested are beyond all belief, and that 
     
     it is particularly suitable for feeding an infinite 
     
     number of livestock of all kinds (cattle, sheep and 
     
     pigs) that will subsequently produce salted meat, 
     
     leather, ta/low, and wool, commodities that are 
     
     equally needed and useful in France, which imports 
     
     a great part of them from abroad. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The cost of the wood will be much lower than in 
     
     France because it can be obtained by putting spare 
     
     soldiers from Louisbourg to work in the woods: 
     
    
   
   
    
     Since the fortifications [of lie Royale] have been 
     
     finished, and since half the companies are more 
     
     than sufficient to keep guard, the King could send 
     
     the other half to /7e Saint-Jean, for cutting and 
     
     squaring timber.5 
     
    
   
   
    
     Boulaye then gives details of a plan that might be 
     
     put into immediate effect: he proposes that 200 
     
     soldiers (i.e. four companies, each of fifty men) be 
     
     sent to lie Saint-Jean in the coming April, and, 
     
     though he is only writing this on 11 February, he 
     
     considers that the instructions can be sent with 
     
     ”the first vessels which leave for the fishery and 
     
     arrive in the month of March”. 
     
    
   
   
    
     ‘ As a raw material for making rope in the eighteenth century, 
     
    
   
   
    
     hemp was a strategic crop. However, there is no evidence, despite 
     
     what Boulaye says, that it was ever grown on He Saint-Jean. 
     
     Bamford (1956) (p. 121, fn. 41) notes that hemp was introduced to 
     
     Canada about 1720 with production thereafter increasing from 200 
     
     livres (weight) in 1722 to 42,200 livres in 1727. Eccles (1964) (p. 
     
     53) however records that Jean Talon, the intendant at Quebec, 
     
    
   
   
    
     was encouraging attempts to grow hemp in Canada as early as the 
     
     16605. 
     
    
   
   
    
     5 Although only glanced at near the beginning of Boulaye‘s 
     
     memorandum one of the results that he claims for his proposal is 
     
     that it would also reduce the costs of maintaining the garrison at 
     
     Louisbourg. 
     
    
   
   
    
     177