Forests and French Sea Power, 1660-1789: 1660-1789 9781442656550

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FORESTS AND FRENCH SEA POWER 1660-1789

Paul Walden Bamford

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS: 1956

Copyright ©, Canada, 1956, by University of Toronto Press, and printed in Canada. London: Geoffrey

Cumberlege, Oxford

SCHOLARLY REPRINT SERIES ISBN 0-8020-7033-7 LC A57-226

University Press

F O R E S T S A N D F R E N C H S E A P O W E R , 1660-1789

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TO MY P A R E N T S

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Preface

FEW WORKS in the English language deal with the historical development of French sea power. G. S. Graham, in his Empire of the North Atlantic, offers an integrated survey of French and British naval development during the old regime. And in adding James Phinney Baxter's Introduction of the Ironclad Warship, and Professor Robert G. Albion of Harvard University, who touches on French developments, one just about completes the list. Theodore Ropp's two-volume work on "French Naval Policy, 1871-1904," remains unpublished. Historians of campaigns, like Mahan, have been more interested in the eighteenth-century record of British success than in the naval annals of the power that came off second-best. Hence British naval history is much better known to the English reader, and with it the political and economic influence of British sea power on international relations. The navy of the old French monarchy is best remembered, at least in America, for its influence on the outcome of the American Revolution. Otherwise, its history is often assumed to consist merely of the unhappy side of British success, a long series of individual defeats largely explicable in terms of faulty tactics and strategy. Those interested in another side of the story, in naval administration and the economic connections of French sea power, can find large regions to be explored in the documentary riches of the Archives de la Marine. Of one of these regions the present study attempts to sketch a provisional map. The title might be taken to promise considerable attention to naval architecture, to problems of decay and rot in wooden ships, and to the sciences, botanical and physical, involved in the con-

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struction and maintenance of timbered warships. These matters are, of course, relevant to the general problem in hand. However, the work of Professor Albion on the British naval timber problem, published some years ago, treats these questions at length. The difficulties of French naval shipbuilders and their methods of dealing with problems of dry rot, timber seasoning, storage, etc., were very similar to the British problems and solutions. It has seemed unnecessary to do more than comment briefly on French experience with some of these technical problems, though special attention has been given here to the problem of mâture d'assemblage (made masts), with which the French were far more deeply involved than the British in the eighteenth century. This study confines itself mainly to analysis of the emergence, growth, and gradual aggravation of the French problem of naval mast and timber supply before the French Revolution. Though essentially concerned with naval administration, this subject has involved study of the connections of the naval service with agricultural, industrial, and commercial conditions in France and in Europe. It has seemed particularly important to show how the mast and timber problem, and with it French sea power, was affected by geography and the nature of public policy. In preparing this study I incurred a host of obligations. Fulbright and Ford Foundation grants afforded financial help without which the research in France and the United States could not have been undertaken. At all stages of that research I enjoyed the co-operation and assistance of archivists and librarians. In France I had the benefit of counsel from MM. Georges Bourgin, Directeur Honoraire des Archives de France, and Jean Denizet, Chef du Service des Archives et Bibliothèques de la Marine. M. Olivier de Prat, charged with the care of naval papers at the Archives Nationales, gave very helpful pointers on the location and nature of manuscript sources, and at Rochefort, Mme Marie Descubes facilitated my use of the documents under her care. The kindness and co-operation of Mlle Mireille Forget, at Toulon, was extended even to the point of giving me access to documents while her archive was being transferred and reorganized. André Reussner, Professor at the Ecole de Guerre Navale, was kind enough to read and comment on an early draft of chapters 11-v. I wish also to thank Professor Albion for his comments on a

PREFACE

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draft of the manuscript, and for having taken the trouble to type and send me unpublished extracts from his dissertation dealing with the timber problem during the French Revolution. Valuable criticism has also been given me by two colleagues, Professors Walter L. Dorn and Warner Woodring of Ohio State University. Miss Jean C. Jamieson, of the University of Toronto Press, gave the manuscript the benefit of her searching editorial criticism. At Columbia University I incurred deep obligations to Professors Shepard B. Clough and Garrett Mattingly for reading and criticizing the entire manuscript. Neither, of course, is responsible for whatever shortcomings remain, but to each I owe much for corrections, and still more for the stimulation afforded by their respective seminars in French and early modern European history. No obligation is greater than that to my wife, Pauline Homa Bamford, who was asked to criticize almost every page of every draft. Her unfailing patience and encouragement have made the book possible,

P. W. B.

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Contents

Preface

vii

I

Dynastie Policy and French Maritime Power

3

II

Masts, Ship Timber, and French Forest Law

10

III

Timber Cuts and Contracts

30

IV

Transport of Naval Timber and Masts

49

Forest Depletion

70

Domestic Timber Shortage and the Navy

95

V VI VII VIII IX X XI

The Quest for Domestic and Colonial Masts and Spars

113

The Northern Market in Naval Stores

135

Merchant Shipping and the Timber Problem

158

Black Sea and North American Markets after 1776

184

Conclusions

206

Sources

213

Index

227

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FORESTS AND FRENCH SEA POWER, 1660-1789

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CHAPTER ONE

Dynastic Policy and French Maritime Power

A NAVY was not essential to national survival for France in the old régime. Hence concern with the development of sea power was spasmodic and only a scattering of French kings took a serious interest in naval affairs. Military power was their preoccupation as long as land frontiers were, or seemed to be, insecure. Whenever French kings maintained a navy before the seventeenth century, it ranked as a poor second to the army, and as long as the navy was overshadowed by the army as an instrument of policy, the relationship between forests and sea power was not a matter of consistent royal concern. As early as the fourteenth century French monarchs undertook to protect forest resources for naval use, but until the seventeenth century legislative efforts in the naval interest were sporadic and ineffective. Early forest law was faulty at best, and the limited protection that bad law could afford was lost in lax enforcement. Until Colbert's day the French mismanaged and abused their forests almost without hindrance, and French woodlands suffered extensive depletion in consequence. But this fact did not then assume the proportions of a national problem, or even the complexion of a serious naval problem. The tardiness with which the French entered the first rank of maritime powers, coupled with the vast extent of their forests, long shielded them both from the real dangers of forest depletion and from much of the naval anxiety that depletion involved. The later Valois kings might remonstrate with commercial shipbuilders for making inroads on timber suitable for the king's ships, but they were actually much less concerned with fighting ships than with the number of their horse and foot. Enfeebled and preoccupied by the

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Civil Wars, they took no serious interest in naval matters after the death of Henry II in 1559. They were vulnerable, and had no choice but to seek the re-establishment of internal peace and a balance between their own and the encircling Habsburg military power. The strategic position of France improved with the accession of Henry IV and the establishment of religious truce, but the energies of the French still focused, of necessity, on their army. Richelieu's navy, a modest and motley collection of fighting ships, few of which survived the neglect of Cardinal Mazarin, was a distinctly subsidiary branch of national endeavour. It was French military might, with but little naval aid, that translated Bourbon policy into the organization of peace at Westphalia in 1648; victorious French armies dictated the terms of peace in 1659. French power in Europe was then inseparable, historically and actually, from the success of continental military arms. When Colbert assumed control of French maritime affairs in the 1660's, the naval tradition in France was long and glorious, but of little consequence compared to the weight of army tradition in the history of Gaul. Ships in the relatively insignificant navy had often been built and maintained with imported materials. Even the acquisition of vessels by foreign purchase had become commonplace. Little naval use had been made of domestic timber resources. Forest proprietors and French peasants in inland provinces had not often been disturbed by the necessity of felling trees and hauling logs for the construction of wooden fortresses that floated on a sea they never saw. But in the decades after 1660, Colbert sought to change all this. The traditional, predominantly military character of French power gave ground before the rapid and enormous growth of the navy. Under Colbert's auspices, France undertook to maintain major defence establishments on both land and sea. The quest for timber and masts became a matter of grave concern for the state, and the sound of axes echoed far and wide in French woodlands. The importance of the new navy, as Colbert conceived it, stemmed from its obvious relation to the growth of foreign trade, the protection and extension of overseas empire, and the greater glory of the monarch. It seemed incongruous to him that Louis XIV should be strong on land but weak at sea. If the prestige of the Grand Monarch could not reach a proper elevation short of

DYNASTIC POLICY AND FRENCH MARITIME POWER

0

"natural frontiers'' and humbled Habsburgs, it certainly, in his opinion, could not reach a proper dignity without a flourishing merchant marine and an empire overseas. It was intolerable to him that the Dutch and English carried French ocean trade and could insult the Bourbon flag and close the sea lanes to French ships in wartime. In his mind, the glory of the king was inseparable from flourishing colonies and commerce; he sought, therefore, to give his royal master arms over the sea, an arm of the sword and an arm of trade. But the two military services were not equally useful or effective in the execution of royal policy. Maritime affairs became the exclusive care of Colbert; they proved to be only a passing fancy for Louis XIV. Habsburg territorial possessions still encircled France and, ostensibly at least, remained a threat to her security. To humble Habsburg prestige and power and to dominate central Europe, were the fundamental aims of Louis XIV's policy; Bourbon claims to "natural boundaries" and to the Spanish inheritance were contrived and asserted at Habsburg expense. Such objectives, after 1659, were probably more traditional than essential to French security, but the fact remains that they were very real objectives, more likely to be achieved by the army than by the navy. Sea power had its place in the vacillating struggles of Louis XIV with the English and the Dutch, but its action was of indirect and small effect compared to that of the army in the achievement of frontiers on the Rhine and in the abasement of Habsburg power. Although the navy assumed unprecedented importance in France after 1660, it .^lained of secondary importance as an instrument of foreign policy and failed, for that reason among others, to attract the sustained and active interest of Louis XIV. As early as 1662 it was evident, painfully evident to Colbert, that Louis XIV had "great distaste for the affairs of the navy."1 The minister sought to nurture whatever sparks of interest the king did show, but the maritime education of Louis XIV was a struggle against a " 'natural aversion to profusions lointaines.' "2 The interests of the monarch focused on his armies, on the Habsburgs, and on the possibilities for territorial gains on the continent of Europe. Half in jest, perhaps, but with uncommon candour, Louis iLa Roncière, V, 329 (note). Cf. B2 1 (Marine) fol. 24. 2Quoted in La Roncière, V, 329.

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remarked to Colbert de Croissy in 1668: "'If the English . . . would be content to be the greatest merchants in Europe, and allow me for my share whatever I can conquer in a just war, nothing would be as convenient for us as to co-operate.5 "3 These princely opinions were moderated over the years by Colbert's tutelage, but for Louis XIV naval power remained a service whose worth in the pursuit of policy was less certain, more remote, and of less concrete consequence than that of Louvois' army. As the military involvements of Louis XIV became more demanding, maritime affairs began to recede in importance from the high point to which they were pushed by Colbert and his son who succeeded him. The support that Louis granted for projects of empire overseas in the 1660's was continued only spasmodically after the coming of the Dutch War in 1672; failure attended the long-range plans and attempts to develop a numerous and efficient merchant marine to carry French foreign trade and to provide a commercial base for naval growth. The navy's record of achievement before the death of its greatest minister in 1683 did not convince the Bourbon prince that power at sea was much more than an auxiliary of armies. With but few exceptions, the commercial and imperial projects of Colbert which the navy was designed to support, and from which naval strength could derive, failed or fell from favour. In the decade after Colbert's death the deepening involvements of French dynastic and territorial policy in Europe, coupled with a serious naval defeat at La Hogue in 1692, served to disparage and discredit the usefulness of the navy. The bitterness of that single defeat tarnished the lustre of earlier victories, fortified the preference of the Grand Monarch for the pageantry and personal glory of generalship, and accelerated French maritime and naval decline.4 The disaster at La Hogue was followed by a long period during which the navy did not, and indeed could not, recover its earlier vigour. The glories of the guerre de course, in retrospect, 3

Quoted in Picavet, 283. La Hogue, by frustrating a project dear to the heart of Louis, certified the navy's ill repute. The Grand Monarch "felt the humiliation of defeat, of having to renounce the restoration of James II in England . . .; he did not forgive the navy, nor did he believe it capable of serving his will. It ceased to occupy his interest and he abandoned himself to his passion for the army." Tramond, 276. 4

DYNASTIC POLICY AND FRENCH MARITIME POWER

7

cannot obscure the fact that for nearly seventy years the navy was once again relegated to a level of importance secondary to that of the army. After 1692 sea power did not have the confidence or serve the immediate purposes of either Louis XIV or Louis XV. Imperial and commercial interests, which might have justified serious rivalry for mastery of the seas, long remained in eclipse. During much of the eighteenth century the aims of French policy remained territorial and dynastic in character, still centring on rivalry with the House of Habsburg and the extension of French territorial holdings and influence through the support of Bourbon or allied candidacies for European thrones. Such objectives required traditional military methods, and the entire complex of maritime affairs including even the commercial and imperial competition with Britain, remained in the background. For more than a decade after 1713, France faced threatening continental neighbours and the dangers of diplomatic isolation. The exigencies of continental policy subordinated French maritime interests even to the formation of an Anglo-French alliance. Involvement in maritime competition was not allowed to deflect the diplomatic and military quest for security on the continent of Europe. The navy's designated role in these circumstances was of no great consequence; a large fleet was not required or desired and the navy's shipbuilding programme and timber purchases were accordingly small. The lack of importance attaching to the navy in the period 1713-40 coincided with the growing influence of public indebtedness on the conduct of government in France. Financial difficulties, seriously evident long before the death of Louis XIV, remained a perennial problem which increased in complexity with the failure of successive attempts at fiscal reform. Public debts justified retrenchment in defence expenditure, and the navy, being the less essential of the two armed services, received far less economic support than had been given under Louis XIV, sometimes not even enough for the purchase of timber to repair or replace existing ships. The bitter naval and imperial lessons of the War of Austrian Succession weakened, but did not discredit the traditional orientation of dynastic policy. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle proved, if proof were needed, that gains across the Rhine could be cancelled overseas, and in the period which followed the war, more attention

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and support were given to naval and colonial affairs than in the lean period that preceded it. A larger naval budget produced large contracts for timber and masts, and many new ships-of-the-line came off the ways. But the navy was not endowed with the strength it would have required had sea power been considered of prime importance for the execution of policy. In the Seven Years' War which followed, the bulk of French preparations were again military and continental, with the navy destined to serve a diversionary role. Again the British enemy faced an inferior fleet, the product of a secondary effort by France at sea. The French navy was not prepared, and could hardly have been expected to deal on equal terms with the British. Victory was expected from the French army, with Austrian and Russian allies. But the continental effort of the armies failed, and French sea power met disaster once again under the guns of the British fleet, which was, and had been since early modern times, the primary tool of British policy and the bulwark of insular and imperial security. Before the war was half over, the French fleet had been reduced to impotence by the successes of its vigorous, numerically superior enemy. Maritime recovery during the war, even under the aegis of Choiseul, was out of the question with British squadrons controlling the sea lanes, preventing the regrouping of French ships, and picking off French and neutral ships seeking to replenish timber supplies and fill the empty mast-ponds at the dockyards; timber exploitations in French forests were halted, for it was useless to cut timber which could not reach the dockyards. But the period of the Seven Years' War saw the renversement des alliances:, the land frontiers of France were thus reasonably secured, and foreign policy could be, and by Choiseul was, brought to focus on the maritime realm. The defensive conception of the struggle with Britain gave way, after the war, to an aggressive seeking after revenge for maritime and imperial damages already sustained. The navy was recognized by Choiseul and his coterie as the weapon with which Britain could be brought to her knees. With a surprising surge of popular support, Choiseul undertook to effect a naval "renaissance," and in the French Pyrenees and countryside the exploitation of forests for shipbuilding revived in a fashion reminiscent of the first years of Colbert a century before. In less than a decade the navy was literally reborn, rising from its

DYNASTIC POLICY AND FRENCH MARITIME POWER

9

position as the second service, with some hesitations at the time of Choiseul's dismissal, to a place of primacy confirmed by the solicitude of Louis XVI. The coffers and credit of the state were at the service of the navy as seldom before. In the War of American Revolution, the prodigality of naval expenditure bought millions of timbers, masts, and spars for a fleet that recalled the glorious days of Seignelay. The French navy, for the first and only time in modern history, displaced the French army as the first service of the realm. It is evident, in retrospect, that the intensity with which the navy sought for supplies of masts and timber was a "barometer" of the navy's favour with the monarch and an index to the role the navy was expected to play in the execution of royal policy. At both the beginning and end of the period with which this study is concerned, in the days of Colbert when a great navy was being created, and during the reign of Louis XVI when the fleet was the principal instrument of policy, the problem of obtaining timber assumed acute importance. Between these two periods of great naval vigour lay many decades, sombre for the navy, in which subordination to the army and the monotony of limited usefulness was relieved only by occasional intervals of regeneration induced by war. Each of these revivals was only temporary, for each culminated in disaster or defeat at sea, usually followed by inactivity at the naval yards. It is against this background—the fluctuating importance of maritime affairs as a phase of policy—that many aspects of the French timber problem can be understood.

CHAPTER TWO

Masts, Ship Timber, and French Forest Law

ALTHOUGH FORESTS, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, provided "the flesh and the bones of men-of-war,"1 timber and masts for ships could not be cut from every tree, nor found in every forest and woodland. Only fine, close-grained quality was desired, even in common planks and deal, and to provide a great timber, cut from a single trunk, large oak 120 to 200 years of age were sought. But many trees reaching that age could not serve, being weakened, rotted, afflicted with heart-shake, or otherwise rendered useless for shipbuilding by the chemical composition of the soil in which they grew, the amount of the precipitation, or other local conditions unsuitable for the growth of timber. Many trees might succumb to the axe before a trunk was found to provide a single massive timber piece. Trees which could provide sound timbers 75 or 80 feet in length, and 20 or more inches square, were nearly always hard to find, and they became scarcer as the forests were worked over by naval contractors in search of proper oak for ships, and still more rare after other forest users made indiscriminate cuts.2 When smaller timbers had to be resorted to, the ingenuity of the shipwright was severely taxed. Indeed, normal limits on the size attained by trees complicated the search for timber and placed definite limits on the size of wooden warships. In France, as in England, oak was the principal timber employed for the hulls of naval vessels, though other woods, such as beech, elm, larch, poplar, spruce, and fir were customarily used in smaller quantities. The timbers which composed a keel were sometimes !Nef, War and Human Progress, 238. 2Albion, 5-7, 17-18, 112-13. Cf. Lane, 217-19.

MASTS, SHIP TIMBER, AND FRENCH FOREST LAW

11

beech when oak was not available; either beech or fir might plank the bottom of the hull, and could serve for some fittings, and for planking decks.3 But oak timber, in a large assortment of special curvatures and shapes, was required to support the decks and frame the bow, the stern, and curving sides. These curved timbers and angular knees were particularly difficult to find, for nature seldom produced the special shapes desired, and still less often in the size and quality sought.4 Occasionally, when these special pieces were in short supply and great demand, attempts were made to use other woods in lieu of oak.5 Even iron was sometimes tried,6 but substitutes were never found to serve as well as oak. The quest for the rare trees which supplied these timbers was a constant naval occupation, and when the fleet was enlarged in France toward the end of the old régime, the depleted state of the forests made the acquisition of timber a matter of enormous difficulty and expense. In the eighteenth century French shipbuilders assembled thousands of pieces, in hundreds of sizes and shapes, including over 120 thousand cubic feet of oak, to construct a ship-of-the-line of first rank.7 The enormous amount of labour and matériel required for the construction of a first-rate can be appreciated from the fact that more than 4,000 oak, and a considerable quantity of other woods were normally employed; more than 300 thousand pounds of iron and 130 to 140 thousand days of labour went into such a ship. But neither the drain on the forests nor the task of the ship3D3 2 (Marine) fol. 215; D3 3 (Marine) fol. 25; Mémain, La Marine de guerre, 579-80; Albion, 8-9. 4 Albion, 8—9. Buffon observed that isolated trees do not "raise themselves" ; rather, "they curve, they twist and give a bad appearance which, however, is an advantage for they furnish a great number of curved pieces for the navy." BufTon, 143-4. Thirty-one plates illustrating shipbuilding timber are to be found in Herbin de Halle. 5D3 2 (Marine) fols. 143-5, 215, 220-1; D3 3 (Marine) fols. 25, 33; E 206 (Marine) unpgd. On the use of substitutes for oak in the British navy: Albion, 21 seq. 6 On the widespread use of iron members by the French: B1 47 (Marine) fol. 300; Bl 96 (Marine) fols. 13-14; Duhamel du Monceau, Elémens de Varchitecture navale, 31, 50 (plate I I ) ; Fréminville, 264-70. On English practice: Albion, 9, 393. 7D1 12 (Marine) fol. 9. In Colbert's day, about 100 thousand cubic feet of oak went into a first-rate. Mémain, La Marine de guerre, 580. The French pied cube was larger than the English cubic foot: "The English foot corresponds to only 11 pouces and 3 lignes by our measure, with 12 pouces to the pied cube" 1A1 93 (Toulon) Castries to Possel, 7 August 1783.

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FORESTS AND FRENCH SEA POWER

wright ended when the ship was built. Tiny organisms, known as sea worms (toredo navalis) attacked the timbers of wooden ships, especially in warmer seas, and if neglected soon honeycombed even a solid hull.8 From within the timber itself, in spite of all preventive efforts, a kind of fungous growth, known as dry rot, often attacked and spread like plague.9 Naval shipbuilders engaged in a constant war against dry rot, extracting the afflicted timbers and replacing them with new pieces lest their contagion spread throughout the whole body of the ship. Because of the rot, a ship might have to be condemned and broken up after only a very few years of service, but with proper care and luck, a ship might survive for thirty years, though rarely more.10 Every year the dockyard doctors used thousands of oak timbers to repair and rebuild ailing ships, young and old alike. While the hull of a ship-of-the-line required the strength of solid oak, towering naval masts and long-armed spars required the supple elasticity of pine or fir. The great masts employed by the French were nearly always of fir, and the quest for trees suitable for masts was even more difficult than the search for oak suitable for timbers. A single great mast for a first-rate could be 123 feet in length and 40 inches in diameter at the heel.11 Whether for masts or spars, great or small, the qualities sought were durable elasticity, even grain, and a proper ratio of girth and length.12 Rotted knots, ex8 Marine borers wrought terrible havoc in oak, but were especially pernicious in other timbers. Albion, 10-11. 9 On the deterioration of timber and the problem of dry rot: Albion, 10 ff. and passim ; Garraud, passim. 10 The average life of French ships-of-the-line of the first two rates built (not rebuilt) during the period 1648-1700 was about twenty years; for thirdrates, about eighteen. Le Conte, Lists of Men-of-War, 7-16, passim. Gf. Albion, 83-6; Lane, Appendix v, 263. In 1790 Malouet, erstwhile intendant at Toulon, estimated the average length of life for naval vessels at 10 to 20 years. Malouet, Rapport, 17. n D3 16 (Marine) "Mémoire concernant la manière de proportionner la mâture des Vaisseaux de Roy" (1722). Thèse dimensions equal (in 1722) those of British masts in first-rates of the Napoleonic period. Cf. Albion, 28. 12 The proportions sought varied, naturally, for masts and spars, and for upper and lower masts. In general, however, French masts were "three times as many feet long as they were in gross diameter, and tapered so that the small end did not exceed two-thirds the diameter of the larger end." D3 7 (Marine) fol. 16. The English navy proportioned lower masts with "an inch of diameter to a yard of length." Albion, 28-9.

MASTS, SHIP TIMBER, AND FRENCH FOREST LAW

13

cessive porosity, or dryness rendered a tree unfit for use as a mast.13 The durability and flexibility of a mast depended on retention of the natural resinous content of the wood, which acted as a preservative long after cutting, and without which the piece would become brittle and stiff. The incidence of large amounts of sap in a species of tree did not necessarily imply good masting quality, for the sap might speedily dry or be dissolved.14 A mast without the proper qualities endangered the ship in which it was stepped, and was a constant threat to both the crew and the success of the mission at hand. Weak or unreliable masts could, and indeed did for both British and French fleets, constitute a profoundly serious obstacle to effective naval operations. Both fleets experienced serious troubles during the War of American Revolution. A mast over the side could mean the difference between victory and defeat, although there were instances on both sides when masts and spars were made to take the blame for a captain's caution or faulty seamanship in battle. Equally, weak masts might bring disaster in a gale; they might snap in a sudden squall, or they might go by the board with the heel and sway of the ship.15 Since European forests seldom produced masting trees of the largest size, French shipbuilders often pieced and fitted pieces (often five or nine) around a central spindle (which might itself be two pieces), the whole tightly bound with iron hoops to form a single giant piece. In the larger sizes these composite masts, mâts d'assemblage as they were called in France, were often composed of as many as 13 separate trees, each between 60 and 78 inches in circumference, cut and fitted to form a single mast.16 Even the smaller component pieces were often difficult to find and, when well proportioned, were apt to be very high in price. The acquisition of such masts and timbers became a serious iSAlbion, 29 seq. Ulbid., 29-32, 296, and passim. On the qualities of French masts, see chap, vu below. iSAlbion, 27-33, passim. 16 The mainmast of the Tonnant (80) comprised 13 pieces of mâture d'assemblage, the foremast and bowsprit 7 each; the mizzenmast was a single piece; the mainyard was in 4 pieces. B3 417 (Marine) fols. 256-8. Composite masts and spars are discussed and illustrated in D1 6 (Marine) fols. 30, 35-6, 55, 5E2 26 (Rochefort) "Etat," 24 February 1787; Lescallier, plates II, V-XII; and Fincham, Treatise on Masting Ships (1854), 250-300.

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problem for the French when Colbert undertook, with characteristic impatience and vigour, to enlarge at once both the navy and the merchant marine. Neither the commercial nor the naval arm of maritime power, he believed, could safely be developed alone; rather, each should sustain the other in concurrent, harmonious growth.17 But maritime growth in France was obstructed by the backwardness of maritime industry in general, and in particular by the difficulty of obtaining timber and masts. The capacity of French industry was grossly insufficient to provide the requisite cannon and ball, fittings and anchors, cordage and sail for large numbers of both merchant and naval craft.18 French forests, largely because of difficulties of communication, were incapable, as will be seen, of providing the dockyards with the requisite timber. Colbert found few entrepreneurs with the capital, experience, and inclination to undertake the work of exploitation. To avoid the bottlenecks of domestic industry, many ships were purchased abroad in the 1660's, and vast quantities of stores were then imported for use in France. Dutch-built ships were bought at Amsterdam. The Danes sold masts, timber, and plank of Baltic origin, and a whole fleet of naval vessels "that had been rendered useless by the conclusion of peace in the north."19 Shipwrights at Copenhagen, Gluckstadt, and Goteborg worked for Louis XIV. During the years 1662—8, 119 naval vessels were acquired by the French, "nearly all" of them built abroad,20 and the masts and timber imported from the Baltic were built into French ships by foreign technicians at work in French construction yards. It was with the growing need of importation before him in 1669 that Colbert founded a Compagnie du Nord to buy and import naval stores from Denmark and Norway and the Baltic north. He hoped that the Company, while helping to relieve the immediate shortage of shipbuilding stores, would also capture a sizable share of, perhaps even control, the northern trade, which was then largely in the hands of Hanseats and Dutch. With Colbert's active support, the Company obtained the favour of royal financial aid and was 17 Colbert confidently asserted that "the naval forces of a state are always proportional to those of trade." Colbert, VI, 268. 18 La Roncière, V, 324-5; Boissonnade, Colbert, 107-21 and passim. 19 Boissonnade et Charliat, 41. 20 Memain, La Marine de guerre, 20. Cf. Le Conte, Lists of Men-of-War. 7 seq.

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assisted in the sale of its shares by the minister's pressure on reluctant buyers. The Company's cargoes and ships were subsidized and exempted from all harbour and tariff dues, and in 1670 and 1671 it was awarded contracts for the importation of 1,500 thousand livres in naval stores.21 The king agreed to buy all materials proper to the construction, refit, armament, and equipment of vessels which the Company could bring from the north.22 Even with these advantages, the Company soon failed. It did, however, in its brief span of active life (1669-74), help to relieve the immediate problem of scarcity in naval stores.23 The difficulties and failure of the Compagnie du Nord underlined the pressing need for expanded domestic production of masts and timber to obviate dependence on the north. The price of all varieties of imported naval stores was high, transportation charges added substantially to their cost, and northern European markets were apt to be inaccessible to French dockyards in times of war. Furthermore, from Colbert's point of view, foreign purchase involved the unpleasant necessity of enriching the Dutch, the Swedes, the Danes, and other maritime competitors with business and bullion which could better be employed for the enrichment of the French. It was both undesirable and unnecessary, said the minister, "to buy from foreigners to supply our navy, especially when we have the same things as abundantly as they."24 In cases where domestic timber was "a little more dear," Colbert ordered that it be used in preference to that imported from the north.25 He believed that French forests, if surveyed, developed, and carefully used, could satisfy French maritime needs with much to spare. Colbert already had at hand a miscellany of conservation legislation, dating from at least the fourteenth century. As early as 1376 two forest ordonnances were issued by Charles V, one of the few kings who sought to make France a maritime power. The 21

Boissonnade et Gharliat, 52, 56-68, 71-3, 84, 86. B7 370 (Marine) "Déclaration du Roy Portant Etablissement d'une Compagnie du Nord," Saint-Germain-en-Laye, June 1669. 23 The Company's operations were hampered by a shortage of cargo ships, and of course the Dutch did all they could to damage and defeat the "intrusion" of the French into their shipping business; war with the Dutch, beginning in 1672, soon crushed the Company. Cole, Colbert, II, 100-2; Boissonnade et Charliat, 116-25. ^Colbert, III, pt. I, 256. 23 Memain La Marine de guerre, 589 (note). 22

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second of these two enactments26 regulated the exploitation of naval timber in Normandy, particularly in the forests of Roumare and Rouvray, which supplied the naval yards and galley base at Rouen. The procedures prescribed in 1376, evidently badly observed, were reiterated by subsequent ordonnances in 1388 and 1402.27 Such regulations, intended to preserve resources for maritime use, were rare; the notion of public interest was not introduced in the forest code until the sixteenth century.28 The early legislation, until after the middle of the seventeenth century, was concentrated on conserving the richly wooded belt around Paris and the forests of Normandy. "At that epoch Paris and Rouen were, and remained until 1669, the two poles of forestry."29 But within these limits successive generations of French kings, beginning with their own forested domains, gleaned from feudal custom a variety of conservation procedures which, by the end of the sixteenth century, they had developed into a large body of legislation.30 The machinery of enforcement did not, however, keep pace with this expanding body of law. The ordonnances of 1376 included no penal provisions for exacting compliance, and in 1388 Charles VI had grounds for complaint that " 'the forests have been little inspected and greatly rummaged and damaged.5 "31 In the sixteenth century, a penal code finally was issued in forest law, but damaging practices persisted and proved increasingly destructive of wooded lands. Such abuses were largely responsible for the continued multiplication of laws.82 Many royal officials responsible for the administration of the forests not only failed to enforce the law, but often connived at and profited by its evasion. The corruption of local officials often allowed timber merchants and proprietors to make their cuts how and where they would. In many ^Lettres portant homologation d'un règlement des maîtres des eaux et forêts, sur le choix de bois de construction dans les forêts royales, Paris, 3 September 1376, partial text in Isambert, V, 478-9. Vide Géneau, LXXVIII, 260-2. 27Géneau, LXXVIII, 260-2. **Ibid., LXXVII, 916. 29 Sainte-Gertrude, 53-4, 69. This limiting of interest was still evident as late as 1662, when Colbert's forest inquisitors were assigned to work "in regions in which their predecessors had worked, that is to say the basins of the Seine and middle Loire." Ibid., 55. 30 Froidour, texts, 2-161; Sainctyon, texts and tables, arranged by subjectmatter. More easily used are those in Baudrillart, I, and Isambert, passim. 3iColbert, IV, intro. by Clément, li. Mlbid., IV, li-liii; Géneau, LXXVIII, 33.

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parts of France, furthermore, local inhabitants retained and cherished feudal rights of forest usage upon which pronouncements by the kings had little effect, unless accompanied by careful implementation and a positive threat of force.33 Royal ordinances dealing with forest matters "quickly became dead letters; solemn documents, with the best intent, were but a subject for mockery : 'Apres trois jours, non-valables,' . . . such was the proverb of the time."34 Among the worst offenders were the inhabitants of the Pyrenees. Caring little for either Habsburg or Bourbon and largely oblivious of sovereign jurisdiction of any kind, the Pyreneans lived a semiautonomous communal existence, cutting timber and clearing the neighbouring forests as generations of their forbears had done, at the dictates of need, bitterly resentful of interference from any authority beyond their own locality.35 In the heavily wooded mountains, where the market for lumber and other forest products was small, the value of the forests was diminished in the eyes of the local populace. Herds of sheep and goats, always enemies of woodland, were allowed to graze unhindered. Individual proprietors sometimes burned their forests to enlarge their pasture and arable land, a procedure perhaps "excusable since the growth of population required it in a closed economy,"36 but inexcusable from the standpoint of the naval interest. One writer, discussing their condition in 1650, had declared that "the greater part of the timber suitable to the construction of ships in privately owned forests has been ruined and nothing remains except the royal forests."37 Twenty years later, Louis de Froidour, one of the most diligent and competent forest inquisitors, estimated that even the royal forests had "diminished by half in the century past."38 Perhaps both Froidour and the earlier commentator exaggerated, yet in 1661 the Conseil du Roi agreed that France, "hitherto replete with fine large forests, is today so depopulated that timber for the repair of ships is found with diffi33Campagne, 48-50; J. de Boislisle, I, 248; II, 61, 68. 34Géneau, LXXVIII, 174. 35 For example, the forests of Larron and Lousse, in Pau, were declared royal forests by a royal commission, but that declaration was ignored and "these judgments remained absolutely without execution." Coincy, 12-13. 36 Quotation from Alaux et Canaby, 322. 3TG. 121 (Marine) fol. 22. 38Quoted by Paul Buffault, 228 (note).

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culty," and "still less is available for the construction of the new vessels His Majesty plans to build."39 There can be no doubt that Colbert, on coming to power, found the forests of the realm on the high road to destruction. The pressing need for ship timber and masts intensified the reforming zeal of a man to whom corruption and neglect in administration were, of themselves, more than enough to bring him to act. An arrêt du conseil of July 1661 placed an embargo on sales and cuts of timber trees suitable for shipbuilding in Burgundy, Brittany, and Normandy except with royal permission.40 Three months later, after the death of Mazarin and the "accession" of Colbert, this law was extended in scope and a "general inventory" was undertaken of all French forest resources. The results were, initially, unsatisfactory; another directive was issued in 1663, in the form of an instruction, ordering officials in each of the 9 forest departments of France to determine "the age, quality, and quantity of trees found in each forest and particularly the situation of those which can serve for the construction and refit of ships."41 Whereas earlier forest surveys had been partial or local, Colbert was satisfied with nothing short of a "general inventory" accompanied by an inquisition. His inquisitors took the title of commissaire.^ Officials charged with the protection of forests under existing law were shocked and awed by the arrival of these inquisitor-commissioners in the provinces, armed with plenary powers to punish those responsible for misusing the forests. The unwanted visitors had a twofold mission: first, to reform the administration of royal forests and inventory the resources they could provide; second, to study earlier laws, judge their utility, and propose desirable rectifications or supplementary laws.43 The commissioners stayed for months, even years in the provinces, turning over the pages of records, interviewing local inhabitants, seeking 3»J. de Boislisle, I, 248. 40 In 1647 an arrêt had been issued to halt forest abuses in these three provinces, "but the evil had not ceased." J. de Boislisle, I, 247-9; II, 61, 68. 41 Quoted by Mémain, La Marine de guerre, 585. 42 The reformers or commissaires were, initially: Chamillart, deputy in the Ile-de-France, Perche, Brie, Picardie, and the pays reconquis', Favier de Boulay, in Normandy; Hotman de Fontenay in Touraine, Anjou, and Maine; de Machault in Champagne. Barrillon d'Amoncourt replaced Chamillart in 1664. Louis de Froidour began in 1662 as procureur de la commission in the Ile-de-France. Géneau, LXXX, 159; Huffel, Economie forestière, III, 148-9. 43Géneau, LXXX, 158-9.

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out evidence, which certainly was not lacking, of maladministration, corruption, and neglect, and ordering reforms in the minister's name.44 Nor did the forests themselves escape their scrutiny. Louis de Froidour, best known of the inquisitors, personally inspected dozens of forests in Beam, Gascony, Guyenne, and Languedoc. Woe unto the local official who was, or had been, careless of his responsibility. Commissioners were empowered to enforce their own will as that of the minister. Men were unseated from office, condemned to pay heavy fines, and required to make large restitutions to the king for damages the forests had sustained.45 Some offenders were condemned to be sent to the galleys "by the first chain," and at least one went to the block.46 These surveys by Colbert's forest inquisitors disclosed, in general, that rights of forest usage, just or unjust, were firmly asserted, while the obligation to preserve and replenish the forests was evaded, or neglected, or simply went unrecognized, with disastrous consequences for the forests. The needs of the naval service were not lost from Colbert's view during the works of reform. Indeed, "it was the interest of the marine, merchant marine, and navy, that he put au premier plan"*1 Particular importance was attached to the forests of Angoulême, for example, because of their proximity to the naval base newly established at Rochefort; Louis de Froidour was sent on a mission to reform those forests in 1673^1. Pyrenees forests, a largely untapped source of supply for masts and spars, were also an object of special ministerial interest. In a letter of instruction to Froidour, Colbert outlined a programme of reform calling at once for regulation, preservation, and exploitation in the Pyrenees in the interests of the naval service. "You must," he said, "reserve all trees that can be transported by navigable rivers, and sternly prohibit the conversion of [great] trees into planks and lesser works . . . [for it is] of very great consequence to the general welfare of the realm that trees of such location and quality be reserved for the navy."48 The first eight years of this forest reformation were but the 44 Colbert, IV, 185-7, and the "Instruction sur la réformation des forêts," dated 10 March 1663, printed in full, 197-203. 45 A total of 275 thousand livres was collected in fines, according to Brown, 33. ^«Colbert, IV, Ivii, 217, 264; Campagne, 50-1. 47Géneau, LXXX, 160. «Colbert IV, 256-7.

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prelude to the Ordonnance des eaux et forêts, issued in 1669,49 an archetype among Colbertist statutes. Nearly 100 pages of text prepared by a twenty-one man commission50 set forth a detailed system of forest management. Regulatory provisions applied primarily to royal forests, secondarily to those held by individuals and in entailed trust by ecclesiastics, communities, and corporations. The old practice, long forbidden in law, of felling desirable trees here and there or anywhere in the expanse of a forested tract (called jardinage), was proscribed again. A system of forest management, compounded of earlier practices, was established, calling for division of each sizable woodland into many compartments, each to be subjected to felling in rotation. The law required that at least 10 trees51 be left standing on each arpent, with the double intent of assuring seed production and the maturation of trees of timber size. To assure adherence to the prescribed system of management the existing maîtrises of waters and forests were reorganized and the system of policing the forests was made more efficient. Each maîtrise had police and administrative powers, field officers to guard the forests, and special courts to try offenders, all under the supervision of the contrôleur général des finances. In the latter's portfolio lay the obligation to achieve some effective compromise between the dual objects of conservation and use. The major legal weapon at his command was the Ordonnance itself, a code which was then supposed to be "precise and certain . . . [a law that] dissipates the obscurity of its predecessors, and no longer leaves pretext or excuse to those who err."52 The Ordonnance system of 49Text in Isambert, XVIII, 219-311. The first printed text of the Ordonnance, published in August 1669 by Leonard, was "so faulty that sales of the published work were halted in the public interest." Various later printings reproduced many of the Leonard errors. See Esmonin's discussion, Esmonin, 9 seq. 50 Among many having a hand in its preparation, two men were most influential: Pussort, uncle of Colbert, autocrat, forceful seeker after order, clarity, and simplicity, left a stamp of inflexible severity on the document; Lamoignon, an illustrious magistrate, represented more humane and traditional, if not reactionary, tendencies, with his respect for property and acquired rights. Pussort's influence most often prevailed. Géneau, LXXX, 162. Cf. Colbert, IV, Ixi-lxii. 51 Amendments to the regulations, by the opening of the eighteenth century, had in many cases increased this figure to 20 per arpent. Huffel, Economie forestière, III, 180. sspreface to Ordonnance of 1669 in Isambert, XVIII, 219.

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management, widely imitated by German princes in later years, was to serve as the basic statute governing French forest exploitations for a century and a half to come. The Ordonnance, though a landmark in the history of French forest legislation, was conceived like the forest reformation itself in the interests of naval power.53 Yet the very complexity of forest management and the multitude of problems posed by local variations in forest usage and land tenure endowed the statute with a comprehensive character which made the few provisions directly concerned with timber trees for the navy seem subordinate and nearly incidental. Its significance carried far beyond the confines of naval affairs and bore upon the whole welfare and economic power of French society, reflecting the intention of Colbert and the will of Louis XIV that a great natural resource should be protected and augmented to sustain the power of the monarch and his heirs.54 Hence, though drawn up for the sake of the navy, the Ordonnance was a naval document only in so far as the interests of the monarch decreed that his navy should share, with certain priorities, in the exploitation of French forest resources. Only a handful of the document's 500-odd articles explicitly governed exploitations of timber for naval purposes, but the navy's small share of articles was far from representing its share in forest resources; those few articles gave the navy large privileges, and were stepping-stones to even greater advantages. One of the articles accorded to the navy a lien on all wood cut in royal forests.55 A timber merchant who contracted to buy the product of cuts in royal forests could be required to sell to the navy any portion of his purchases needed by the naval service "on payment to him of a price according with the estimate . . . of people conversant with 53 Louis XIV revealed "the thought that inspired the Ordonnance of 1669" when he remarked, in 1662: "'I will apply myself, from this year henceforth to [the creation of] a règlement for the forests of my realm where disorder is extreme and especially displeasing since I have long since formed great plans for the navy.' " Quoted by Sainte-Gertrude, 124. 54 Forests played an important role as a source of revenue. Under the impress of Colbert's programme, gross revenue from forêts domaniales increased from 338,252 livres in 1660 to 2,051,272 in 1689. Huffel, Economie forestière, III, 264. 53 In cases where wood was required for the construction or repair of royal buildings, the navy shared the product of royal forests. Ordonnance, title XXI, art. 1, in Isambert, XVIII, 270.

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such affairs." The navy, the greatest single buyer in the timber market, developed the practice of sending commissioners to inspect trees on which merchants made their bids. Since the navy required timber of the first quality and masts of all sizes to meet various requirements, its commissioners were empowered, in practice, to buy all or any part of the finest trees or timberpieces offered for sale, leaving those of inferior quality or faulty dimensions for commercial shipbuilders or other civil buyers. Another article of the Ordonnance decreed that if the naval service required "pieces of such size and length as cannot be found in ordinary sales [by auction to merchants or other bidders] . . . the Grand Master [of waters and forests] . . . may cause such to be marked and felled in our forests in areas where this can be done with the least damage/' 57 Here an exception was made, in behalf of the navy, to the established system of management. The Ordonnance, as we have seen, set up a system of rotational cuts confined to one or more selected parts of the forest. Yet this particular article permitted the navy to cut trees in any part of a forest regardless of scheduled cuts and in contradiction to the system of exploitations established in law.58 Moreover, if royal forests could not supply the special pieces required by the navy, they could be "selected and taken from the forests of the king's subjects whether ecclesiastics or others," under obligation of just payment for value received.59 Recognizing that the rotation of cuts on ecclesiastical and other private woodlands might not allow any, or many trees to reach the maturity essential both for reproduction and for the production of great timbers for naval use, the Ordonnance required that onequarter of the forest belonging to bishoprics, abbeys, commanderies, and communities be reserved for the growth of mature trees (jutaie}.™ To the navy was reserved the right to buy all suitable trees on private lands situated within 10 leagues of the sea and 2 leagues of navigable rivers. Trees deemed suitable for naval use Mlbid. ^Ordonnance, title XXI, art. 2, in Isambert, XVIII, 270. Such extraordinary cuts for the navy could be made only when specially authorized by letters patent "issued in conformity with the advice of the superintendent of buildings or the contrôleur général des finances." Ordonnance, title XXI, art. 2, in Isambert, XVIII, 270. ^Ordonnance, title XXI, art. 2, in Isambert, XVIII, 270. Wlbid., title XXIV, arts. 2-3. and title XVI, art. 284, in Isambert, XVIII, 277-8. 58

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could be specially marked with the arms of the king by martelage?1 and thus excluded from diversion to other uses.62 This right of naval pre-emption was merely an elaboration of earlier practices. The navy had been granted comparable priorities by Richelieu in an edict of 15 January 1639, and by an Ordre du Roi of 1648 giving priority to naval timber contractors.63 The Ordonnance simply regularized and extended such privileges. The Ordonnance was, in fact, in very large part based on precedent; it represented a codification of existing law, a "synthesis of the ordonnances domaniales of the fourteenth century and of the règlements de police general of the sixteenth."64 It reasserted the right of the king to regulate the use of forest resources. From earlier statutes were drawn the principles of forest management around which the new regulatory code was built, and a careful examination of the provisions of the Ordonnance affords conclusive proof of heavy borrowings of detail from various earlier laws.65 But the new code was an innovation in that the revival of precedent was accompanied by a determined attempt at stern enforcement. And in areas where the new law was enforced, individuals, communities, and corporations alike found their habits of forest exploitation and their interests inconveniently and unpleasantly infringed; simply because it was, unlike most of its predecessors, actually enforced in a considerable part of the realm, "the Ordonnance of Colbert had the immense disgrace of displeasing nearly everyone."66 Under these circumstances the new forest code, though effective in some areas, was neither quickly nor uniformly effective in achievQl Martelage, so called after the marteau used to impress the king's coat of arms on trees, was used not only for reserving naval timber, but also for marking seeding, boundary, and other trees selected for exclusion from cuts. A curious provision of the law specified that the marteau be kept in an iron box carrying three locks, the keys to which must be distributed among as many officials. ^Ordonnance, title XXI, art. 2; title XXVI, arts. 2-3, in Isambert, XVIII, 270-84. 63 Memain, La Marine de guerre, 586. e^Géneau, LXXVII, 917. 65 Borrowings were heavy from the Ordonnance of 1376 (reproduced in 1515) and from various arrêts decreed for particular localities in the sixteenth century, and from the règlement of the Table de Marbre of Paris of 4 September 1601, v/hich alone supplied 30 articles for the statute issued in 1669. Sainte-Gertrude, 43, 47, 136-67 passim. ««Tessier, 13.

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ing the authors' aims. In its details the law was, as one commentator remarked, "nearly always far from perfection."67 Intended for general application to all forested lands in France, in theory it admitted no exceptions.68 Thus applied, the code, like most of its predecessors, promised to run aground on the sands of feudal forest rights. Proprietors, and peasants especially, were prone to follow the dictates of custom and need in cuts of trees; their sheep and goats were often allowed to graze unhindered. Such destructive customs were so widespread and deeply entrenched that even the power of the Grand Monarch would be overtaxed in an attempt to root them out at once. There was at least a temporary need for flexibility in the administration of forest law, a need for circumspect and gradual progress toward full and universal conformity with the letter of the code.69 Therefore many feudal usages, though proscribed by the law, were allowed to persist. In practice, the Ordonnance was immediately applied in only part of the realm. Even so, resistance to enforcement, usually furtive in Colbert's later days, did not allow the inquisitors to rest. Their services remained necessary to adapt the reformation to local conditions. They served in areas where the law was belatedly applied; they helped to suppress misappropriation of shipbuilding timber. Yet it became necessary, in the years after 1669, to issue a profusion of arrêts, déclarations, and edits to reinforce the Ordonnance and to meet new and recurrent forest abuse.70 Some of these later enactments related directly to the conservation of timber and masts for the navy. In 1672, the outbreak of hostilities closed the northern market to France,71 and much attention was then given to the enforcement of the navy's priority over masting trees in Auvergne and the Pyrenees. New laws were issued, among them a decree of 1672 which prohibited all exploitation of trees in Auvergne until naval commissioners had marked and reserved those deemed useful to the 67D3 3 (Marine) fol. 182. 68Paul Buffault, 516. 69 "The agents of the [forest] reformation could not hope to destroy all abuses at a blow; only sustained and active surveillance could, with time, authorize hope for their diminution." Gosselin, 8. Colbert himself was fully aware that forest law should in some localities be tempered by "local usage and humeur" Colbert, IV, 250. 70 The volume of supplementary legislation was enormous; dozens of printed copies of such measures are in AD IV (Arch Nat) vols. 8—9. 71 Boissonnade et Charliat, Î11-13.

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7L>

fighting fleet. In the Pyrenees, Angoulême, and Languedoc, Froidour issued a whole series of decrees designed to conciliate and satisfy at once the needs of the forests and the wartime needs of the navy ( a nearly impossible task ! ). Further legislation was necessary in the 16805s. By 1683 shipbuilding timber reserved for the navy near the coasts was deemed insufficient, and the preserves were extended to 15 leagues from the sea and 6 from the rivers.73 The next year an arrêt prohibited the cutting of timber in certain coastal provinces, regardless of the distance from the sea, until naval authorities at Rochefort had been informed.74 Nor did the last fifteen years of the century see the end of forest destruction; as indicated by the preamble to the arrêt of 10 March 1685, "most proprietors" ignored the regulations under one or another pretext.75 The issuing of new statutes against abuse was frequent,76 so frequent that the desks of intendants and their subdélégués must have been cluttered with them in the last decades of the century. These laws represented more than a mere reiteration of the Ordonnance of 1669. Piecemeal fashion, they effected changes in the body of law dealing with forest management, and they progressively extended naval priorities. In 1700, finally, the fragmentary legislation dealing with naval supply was brought together as the basis for a second comprehensive law: the arrêt du conseil of 21 September 1700, issued at a time when imminent war generated special solicitude for naval needs.77 Like the Ordonnance of 1669, this arrêt dealt with exploitations in both royal and private domains. The earlier statute had designated royal forests as the principal source of naval timber, with other forests as an alternative and auxiliary resource.78 The arrêt of 1700 sustained the navy's right to "preview" cuts to prevent the 72 Rouganne, 14—15. Auvergne forests had been examined and adjudged a valuable resource for masts in 1665. B3 5 (Marine) fol. 491. 73 Arrêt du conseil, 9 November 1683. 74 Cole, French Mercantilism, 106; Mémain, La Marine de guerre, 596. ™ Arrêt du conseil, 10 March 1685, in Baudrillart, I, 104-5. Cf. preamble, arrêt du conseil, 21 September 1700. 76 Baudrillart, I, 102-31 passim. 77 "Arrcst du Conseil d'Estat du Roy qui Règle les Formalitez à observer pour la Coupe de Bois pour la Marine, du 21 Septembre 1700," copy published in 1719 in AD VII 1 (Arch Nat). ^Ordonnance, title XXI. art. 2, in Isambcrt, XVIII, 270.

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diversion of timber to other uses, and set forth in detail the various procedures to be followed by proprietors and by the navy in effecting ordinary and extraordinary cuts, in both royal and private forests. Reiterating earlier, fragmentary legislation, the arrêt of 1700 required that proprietors of forests situated within accessible distance of the sea and navigable rivers79 submit a written declaration detailing the quantity, quality, type, and age of any futaie they desired to cut. Such declarations had to be filed at least six months in advance. A copy of their declaration was given to the navy for its information, and at any time during the six months' "waiting period," naval commissioners or inspectors could visit the forests where cuts were scheduled to be made, and mark for reserve any trees suitable for naval needs. Standing timber trees thus marked remained the property of the owner of the forest, but could be sold by him only to the navy or its representatives.80 There was also a reiteration of the navy's right, under certain circumstances, to enter private forests and cut trees against the wishes of the owner.81 Over a period of years, the navy could thus establish a large reserve of trees which could be conscripted, converted to ship timber, and brought to the construction yards at the convenience of the service. But this system was to prove disadvantageous and, as we shall see, disheartening to the proprietors of woodlands. Comprehensive though it was, the arrêt of 1700 left open an important loophole by which proprietors could escape compliance with the law. Penalties were provided to punish those who made cuts without filing their declaration or without waiting the prescribed six months,82 but curiously, no direct penalty was provided 79 The arrêt of 1700 reiterated, art. 5, that the navy's jurisdiction extended to forests 15 leagues from the sea and 6 from rivers that were navigable. Cf. arrêt of 9 November 1683 and Ordonnance of 15 April 1689, in Baudrillart, I, 102-3, 113. ^Arrêt du conseil, 21 September 1700, arts. 5-6, in Baudrillart, I, 141. 81 Arrêt du conseil, 21 September 1700, art. 9. in Isambert, XVIII, 141-2. In practice this right was seldom exercised since it involved an express order from the king, and payment not only for trees cut but also for any damage inflicted on other trees or on property of other kinds during the exploitation. D3 15 (Marine) fol. 158. The administrative difficulties involved in forced sale were also a serious deterrent to this type of acquisition: IL 435 (Toulon) "Observations sur les difficultés qui se rencontrent pour l'Exécution des ordonnances et arrêts . . . au suject des . . . bois propres pour le service de la marine" (1728?). 82 The penalty: 3,000 livres' fine and confiscation of the trees that had been cut.

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to enforce conservation of those trees in private forests that were marked with the arms of the king as naval reserve. Proprietors, after making a declaration and waiting 6 months, could cut marked trees without facing any pecuniary or other punishment.83 But the arrêt of 1700 was useful to the navy even though it did not specify penalties for those who cut marked trees. The navy's mark was often respected; the forests, though gradually depleted and still misused, nevertheless satisfied most of the navy's needs for timber during the first half of the eighteenth century. But it was, after all, during that half-century that its needs were small. The paternalism of Colbert was no more; the Regency and the parsimonious Cardinal were disinclined to open the coffers of the state for men-of-war. French policy was oriented toward the continent, away from the sea. But the war with England in the 1740's gave some vigour to a revival of the navy after 1748, and one of the first steps taken in its interest was the issuance of the arrêt du conseil of 23 July 1748, the third of the basic statutes governing the exploitation of timber and masts, and "the most advantageous the navy had yet obtained."84 This arrêt closed, finally, the loophole in the system of martelage by imposing a penalty of 3,000 livres on those who cut marked trees without authority.85 But more important even than this, the system of martelage itself was overhauled and elaborated to give the navy greater pre-emptive powers. Hitherto, the naval service had been authorized to mark only one type of tree: those that had achieved sufficient age and size to make them proper for the construction and repair of ships. The new arrêt stipulated that two types could henceforth be chosen and marked: those that were proper and those that would become proper for shipbuilding.86 Thus naval commissioners were allowed to use their expert knowledge of soil, climatic conditions, and arboreal varieties and types to preserve 83 In practice, however, it was often in the proprietor's interest to sell larger trees in his woodland to the navy. Commercial lumber or timber merchants could not often market the great pieces which could be cut from forest giants; commercial shipbuilders could rarely use the large timbers sought by the navy. The navy, needing trees of special shapes and maximum size, was willing to pay higher prices for them, if they were of the first quality. *4D3 3 (Marine) fol. 184. 85Arrêt du conseil, 23 July 1748, in Isambert, XXII, 220. A "greater" penalty was imposed for second offenders. *«Arrêt du conseil, 23 July 1748, in Baudrillart, I, 330-1.

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promising young trees from the axe of undiscriminating proprietors and thus ensure a better selection of fine trees for eventual use. It can be imagined, however, that the satisfaction of naval officials over the new law was not shared by forest proprietors, who must have looked upon the enactment as a serious new violation of proprietary prérogative and, furthermore, as an ominous threat to their pecuniary interests. Such apprehensions were not without foundation. The navy had already proved itself forgetful of trees marked as reserve, and would continue to allow them to stand in the forests well past their prime.87 Timber trees, in passing from maturity into old age, were usually weakened, split, or rotted at the heart, and thus rendered useless for shipbuilding and many other works;88 in such cases the owner, who could not legally cut marked trees, stood by in economic anguish watching them rot.89 Armed with the three basic statutes, the Ordonnance of 1669 and the arrêts of 1700 and 1748, the navy was well equipped to seek the satisfaction of its timber needs in domestic forests. The remaining years of the old régime saw no basic change in the system of exploitation laid down by these laws. But they did see continued depletion of the forests and intensification of the navy's anxiety over the possibility of a shortage of domestic timber. The arrêts of 1700 and 1748 were themselves the product of that anxiety; likewise the numerous statutes issues after 1748, reiterating the old and exhorting against continued forest abuse, were grounded on the fear of depletion.90 When, toward the end of the ancien régime, the menace of shortage increased in spite of these legal 87 In 1776, for example, a naval inspector verified complaints by Dauphiné proprietors that they were burdened with "a considerable quantity of old oak marked since time immemorial, of which part are past their prime and the greater part absolutely unfit ever to be employed for vessels of the king." D3 15 (Marine) fol. 53; D3 2 (Marine) fol. 192. 88Laslett, 20. 89 The injustice of marking, but failing to buy proprietors' trees was recognized by art. 9 of the règlement of 16 December 1786, which ordered that marked trees be purchased by the navy within one year. 90The arrêts of 23 July 1754, 17 March 1757, and 3 July 1759 confirmed that of 1748. The arrêt of 3 February 1767 forbade unauthorized cuts regardless of distance from rivers and the sea. The "Règlement concernant les dispositions à suivre par la Marine en exécution des Ordonnances & Arrêts . . . sur les Martellages & Achats d'arbres," Versailles, 16 December 1786, regularized the relations of the navy with its contractors, the proprietors, and the maîtres des eaux et forêts. Copy in AD VII 1 (Arch Nat).

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measures, naval administrators became sharp critics of forest management. However, they had less reason for complaint in the matter of forest administration than their English rivals. The need for conservation was more often realized by French monarchs and their ministers than by English kings and parliaments. French kings imposed upon their subjects a system of forest management calculated to serve the interests of society and the navy, the like of which the landowning members of Parliament declined to impose upon themselves, even in the interests of the British navy. French forest law and administration, and French naval priorities, were the envy of British naval administrators. Under French forest law, the navy enjoyed the benefits of an arbitrary executive.

CHAPTER THREE

Timber Cuts and Contracts

IT WAS THE AIM of naval administrators to obtain adequate quantities of high-quality timber at the lowest possible price, and with the least possible attendant difficulty. To achieve these aims, either of two methods of exploitation might be employed. Naval personnel themselves might acquire timber trees under a system known as régie, or might rely on the services of timber merchants under a system labelled entreprise.1 Acquisitions of timber by régie usually involved direct dealings between the navy and forest proprietors, and the system proved both practicable and economical on occasions when a long-continued, intensive exploitation had to be made. But régie was also employed when entrepreneurs refused to deal with the navy, were for other reasons unavailable, or demanded unreasonably high prices for the timber they delivered by entreprise. In cases where suitable timber trees were widely scattered, costs were high in exploitations of the régie type because of the extra administrative details it involved for all levels of the navy and because of the necessity of employing numerous salaried officials in widely separated localities to superintend the details of cutting and shipping logs. Moreover, in the navy's experience, officials detached from the dockyards for service in the provinces were sometimes unscrupulous, lazy, or extravagant in effecting exploitations; perhaps the 1 Entrepreneurs might be employed to acquire and deliver timber, sometimes only to deliver, on a cost-plus-commission basis without risk to themselves. There were instances when the two methods were, in effect, combined in allowing naval officials to deliver timber and masts to the dockyards as private contractors. Mémain, La Marine du guerre, 294 seq., 473 seq. Works at the dockyards, such as the unloading and empilage of timber, and the construction of ships themselves, might be performed either by entreprise or by régie.

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opportunities for rising in the hierarchy of naval officialdom did not afford an incentive to efficiency as strong as the pecuniary motive of the merchant entrepreneur. Furthermore, the fact that the relations between timber buyers and forest proprietors were not always amicable over prices tended to make it undesirable for naval officials to be directly involved, as in the case of régie, in the purchase of trees from forest owners: it was more expedient to employ profit-seeking merchants to squeeze the proprietors' pocketbooks. The services of an entrepreneur were particularly desirable when it was a question of cutting trees that the local people wanted for their own use, or ornamental trees such as those in the parks or along the avenues of châteaux. Trees of the latter variety, however desirable as ship timber, were conscripted by the navy only in the last extremity, for the bitterness of noble proprietors could occasion serious difficulties for the navy at Court. Both methods of exploitation were used extensively in the seventeenth century, but the régie method had greatly diminished in importance and was used much less often by the early eighteenth, particularly in the supply of arsenals on the Atlantic seaboard. Exploitations by that method and the burden of administrative responsibility they caused became less and less necessary when a sufficiently large group of entrepreneurs became convinced that profits could be made in exploitations, and entered into competition with their fellows for the lucrative privilege of serving as naval contractors. Incidental privileges and prestige probably offered attractions beyond the profits which proper sales of timber could give. Although the navy still took a direct hand in exploitations after the middle of the eighteenth century, particularly in obtaining masts from the Pyrenees and stores from the Baltic, the entrepreneurial system predominated. By the 1780's the conviction that exploitations by régie were both uneconomical and undesirable had brought nearly all such works to a halt in domestic timber buying. " 'We know from multiple comparisons,' " remarked one naval official, " 'that the journée du roi is at least one-third more costly than entrepreneurial labour.' "2 By employing timber merchants under the system of entreprise 2

Loir, 175. On contracts and contracting methods: B3 471 (Marine) fols. 117-18; Bi 86 (Marine) fol. 57; Bi 88 (Marine) fol. 99; D» 5 (Marine) fols. 9-10, 13-14; G. 75 (Marine) Maurepas to Mithon, 28 March 1725; A. M. de Boislisle, M. de Bonrepaus, 11; Brun, I, 330-1 ; Mémain, La Marine de guerre, 294-9, 307-8.

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the navy benefited by the reduction in costs that competitive bidding for contracts could afford. This was less the case in Colbert's time, of course, when there were fewer timber merchants willing and able to undertake major exploitations. An entrepreneur could then propose, and without competition from other merchants, receive a contract. But in the eighteenth century, bidding for contracts was strongly encouraged, and was required when the product of royal forests was involved. Bidding was customarily announced by proclamations posted at a dockyard where contracts were being let, or in a region where exploitations were scheduled to take place; regularized competitive bidding gradually became the rule.3 When their bids were accepted, entrepreneurs signed contracts of a certain duration, defining their rights and obligations, specifying the amount and types of timber to be delivered, and the prices to be paid.4 The minister, of course, was the final naval authority on contracts.5 Until 1776 nearly all contracts for masts and timber were granted by him. Intendants at the ports negotiated only for deliveries from the environs of the ports. But in 1776-7, the system was decentralized, and the minister was relieved of much detail by permitting the intendants of the ports, in collaboration with their contrôleurs and the local conseils de marine, to negotiate and manage contracts.6 Inventories kept by the dockyards afforded a basis for estimating 3

D3 5 (Marine) fol. 64; Duhamel du Monceau, De l'exploitation des bois. I, 153. The Règlement of 6 October 1674 and the Ordonnance of 1689 prescribed this procedure, but even in the eighteenth century unsolicited offers were sometimes tendered in the form of letters to an intendant or to the minister, offering to cut and deliver timber from private lands. Such offers often came from proprietors with small holdings, as well as from those with large. 4 A11 contracts were, by agreement, modified in event of war. Even in peacetime, merchants often solicited and sometimes obtained modifications in the terms of their contracts. IE vols. 209 and 218 (Rochefort) fols. 366-7 and 85 respectively. Articles 18 and 19, Règlement du Roi of 16 December 1786 established a stereotyped contract form to be used in all timber contracts after 1 January 1788. 5 In actual practice under virtually all administrations after Colbert's, the First Clerks of the navy were the real chefs de service, in both the central administration and at the ports, "being charged with "purchases of munitions" in the Ponant and of "purchases of timber in Burgundy and Franche-Comté. . . ." at Toulon. Etat sommaire, xxxvi-xxxvii, 411; Loir, 68-9. «D3 3 (Marine) fol. 197; B* 88 (Marine) fol. 280; Loir, 162-9. The Ordonnance du Roi concernant la régie et administration générale et particulière des Ports & Arsenaux, 27 September 1776, title VII, arts. 163, 167, 179, endowed intendants and the Conseil de Marine at each port with joint responsibility for awarding contracts involving more than 100 livres.

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their immediate needs for masts and timber, but the size and duration of contracts were determined by various other factors, including the availability of money for purchases of matériel. For the most part, timber contracts were awarded on a hand-to-mouth basis. The desirability of accumulating reserves at the dockyards was clearly understood, but could rarely be acted upon with success. Colbert ordered the development of timber reserves sufficient for the construction of 4, later for 10 ships-of-the-line at each of the three major naval yards.7 But the rapid expansion of the fleet and the frequency of war tended, in the whole period from 1661 to 1713, to prevent the accumulation of large reserves. From 1713 until about the middle of the eighteenth century the navy's budget scarcely permitted the satisfaction of immediate needs for matériel, and reserves were a financial impossibility. In the 1760's, the Due de Choiseul, in turn, sought with some success to develop a surplus of construction timber.8 Perhaps paradoxically, the largest investments in stockpiles of timber were made after 1783, at a time when extreme financial difficulties might have been expected to forbid an undertaking that involved such great initial costs.9 Naval interests alone did not decide the duration and size of individual contracts. The interests of the entrepreneurs could not be ignored lest they refuse to contract. The nature of an entrepreneur's exploitation might require a heavy initial investment; he could then demand a large contract of long duration and might also obtain advance payments or interest-free loans from the navy, secured by his property and repaid by the first deliveries after exploitations began. The extraction of masts from mountainous Auvergne and the Pyrenees often required agreements of this type, sometimes of 20 years' duration, with heavy advances given by the navy.10 In periods of low prices (budget permitting) the navy ^Colbert, III, pt. I, 122, 129, 131, 162 (note), 215-16, 266, 294. On one occasion Colbert recommended storage of timber for 20 ships-of-the-line at Toulon alone. Ibid., 236. 8 Choiseul, 407. Timber collected at the port of Brest "by 31 December 1769, deduction made for that which will be consumed this year, [will amount to] more than 1,225 thousand cubic feet . . . sufficient for the construction of fifteen large vessels." B1 74 (Marine) fol. 290. On the difficulties incident to stockpiling in the 1760's: Bi 71 (Marine) fols. 81-6. OBI 69 (Marine) fol. 274; BI 70 (Marine) fol. 10; B* 71 (Marine) fols. 81-6. 1031 74 (Marine) fols. 179-81. Regarding early payment in lieu of actual advances: B3 622 (Marine) fols. 210 11.

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naturally tended to favour large contracts of long duration, but merchants were not always willing to sign long-term agreements, even when trees were readily accessible and prices were high. Such was the case when the navy's credit was bad, when its debts were large, and when payments on contract obligations were slow. Then the merchants usually preferred to deliver on a short-term, even on a year-to-year basis, or not at all.11 Naval contractors were usually numerous, but there were seldom more than a handful holding large contracts. Many committed themselves to deliver only a few thousand cubic feet of timber or a few masts to one of the dockyards; a few held contracts for hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of timber to supply one or more yards. Very few seem to have held successive naval contracts over a long period of years, for reasons which will be discussed later. Although personal details are lacking for nearly all the contractors, a few merchants are notable for the size or importance of their contracts. The Sieurs Dumont, Gabe, and Forçade, all of whom engaged in exploitations in the Pyrenees in different periods, are worthy of note—though the prominence of Forçade's name in the documents results from outstanding failure rather than success. Very large contracts were held by the Sieur Marchais and by the Sieurs Bellarbe and Clainche after the middle of the eighteenth century. Pean de St. Gilles, Petel and Company, and Bentabole were among the great merchant contractors taking part in the vigorous naval programme of the 1760's.12 But powerful though contractors might be for a few years, their prominence as naval contractors sometimes waned quickly, as with the demise of a ministerial patron. Of the hundreds of contractors whose names figure in the documents, Babaud de la Chaussade enjoys the special distinction of having held contracts of great importance over a period of more lir rhe Règlement of 16 December 1786 limited the duration of contracts to six years. Art. 23, Isambert, XXVIII, 279-80. 12 Petel and Company was capitalized at 640 thousand livres, in 32 shares, headed by the Sieur Petel whom "M. le Marquis de Puységur a produit le mettre à la tête de l'affaire." Petel himself had difficulty raising the 60 thousand livres for his 3 company shares. Other personages involved were: Carón and Fournieve, payeurs des rentes; Pannelier, receveur général des domaines et bois; Gobel, Allard, and Filleul, anciens fournisseurs de bois pour la marine ; Gilles, cassier de la compagnie; Qulus, intendant for Madame la Cesse de Brionne; Goulard, médecin. B1 69 (Marine) fol. 246.

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than half a century. La Chaussade's first contract, signed in August 1728, called for an advance of 100 thousand livres by the navy, which he secured with his mother's property.13 In that first venture, if we are to believe his account, he came perilously close to disaster,14 but managed to survive, profit, and extend the scope of his operations in later exploitations. He branched into the iron business on a very large scale,15 selling anchors and iron fittings to the navy, and briefly into the business of importing masts.16 During the Seven Years' War and the Choiseul period (1761-70), La Chaussade concentrated on the traffic in irons, but the eve of war with England in the 1770's, with its promise of wartime profits to timber merchants, saw him back in the timber trade with immense contracts.17 La Chaussade became the greatest contractor of the century, a man that one memoirist referred to as "unique in the realm."18 Powerful merchants like La Chaussade were in a position to exert considerable influence over the award of naval contracts, Outright admissions of such influence are naturally rare in official papers. But it can be surmised that the contract system in France could scarcely have been free from corrupt practices in an age when intrigue was both publicly and privately accepted as a prime mover in government, and when the highest naval officials, the ministers themselves, secured and lost their posts by backstairs diplomacy. Secretaries of state for the navy were usually favourites themselves 13D3 8 (Marine) fol. 207; B^ 326 (Marine) fols. 372 seq. 14 La Chaussade contracted for deliveries of Lorraine timber, which was brought down via the Moselle and Rhine to Dort and then shipped by sea to the dockyards. River tolls levied on his shipments, especially at Trêves, were unexpectedly heavy and, according to La Chaussade, nearly brought about his ruin. When he informed the navy that he might not be able to fulfil his contract, the navy prepared to confiscate the property that secured his advance. B3 326 (Marine) fol. 369 seq,', D3 8 (Marine) fols. 56-7. The tolls apparently were not as burdensome as La Chaussade claimed (perhaps with some mistaken notion of obtaining an increase in timber prices) since he agreed to sign a second Rhine contract of 6 years' duration in February 1735, and a third in 1740. B3 384 (Marine) fols. 209-10, B3 389 (Marine) fol. 114. isfii 80 (Marine) fol. 197. Cf. Gille, 102-3. 165E2 19 (Rochefort) "Mémoire du Sieur Michel" dated September 1749; B1 66 (Marine) fol. 8. This four-year contract was apparently extended or renewed, since deliveries were still being made in 1756. B2 352 (Marine) fol. 45. !7E 205 (Marine) "Dépenses . . . de Tannée 1781"; IE vols. 210, 215, 216, and 219 (Rochefort) fols. 95, 117. 115, and 25 respectively. i»Bi 80 (Marine) fol. 197.

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or satellites of some exalted personage, and as such could not often neglect to grant favours asked by influential members of the Court. More than once a contrôleur général became the partisan of a particular naval timber merchant.19 La Chaussade enjoyed the powerful favour of the ministers Maurepas, Machault d'Arnouville, Sartine, and Castries. Even contractors with unsavoury reputations could obtain preferential treatment. When the Duc de Choiseul exchanged the Ministry of the Navy for that of Foreign Affairs in 1766, he asked his cousin and successor in the Navy Department to give preference in certain contracts to a certain Bordeaux merchant by the name of Gradis.20 This same Gradis, in the 1750's, had been an active and well-remunerated partner in the frauds and thefts for which François Bigot, the last Intendant of NouvelleFrance, was publicly tried, convicted, and condemned.21 Nor is there reason to believe that influence, favouritism, and mismanagement were confined to the highest levels of administration. Routine administrative procedure gave ample opportunity for the development of such practices among lesser functionaries.22 When an attractive bid was made, the minister might ask local officials to express their opinions, or even to make an investigation concerning the ability of the bidder to fulfil the contract he offered to make.23 Such procedure was commonplace when the bidding merchant had not previously held a contract and was unknown to the minister, or when he asked part-payment in advance. If the merchant was described to the minister as insolvent or otherwise unreliable, his chances of acquiring a contract were practically nil, even though his bid was low. In such circumstances, there was ample opportunity for the extra-legal relations between the provincial official and the merchant to influence the opinions that went 19B1 75 (Marine) fols. 82-3; B1 92 (Marine) fol. 15; B* 766 (Marine) fols. 88-94. 20 The favour was not granted, a fact of which Gradis complained to Choiseul. Maupassant, 133-4. 2i\Vrong, II, 825-30, 881-2; Frégault, I, 287-433 passim, II, 122-7, 270-82. 22 Faulty administrative records and procedures, with lack of adequate supervision over workers at the yards, and poor pay for such workers, encouraged inefficiency and corruption. See the highly critical work of Secondât, 27-129 passim, esp. 60-6, 68, 77-80. 23Examples in B* 75 (Marine) fols. 134-5; B* 326 (Marine) fols. 368-78, 474-9; BI 81 (Marine) fol. 191.

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to the far-off minister and ultimately helped to determine the award of contracts. There were other opportunities for shady practices. It is a matter of record that the system of martelage was corrupted when the trees of certain proprietors "were exempted from the mark" by naval officials responsible for the selection of trees for naval reserve.24 Naval commissioners are known to have rendered other extra-legal services to proprietors and the latter must certainly have reciprocated somehow.25 Likewise, in the administration of contracts by intendants at the ports, "preference was given to certain merchants without valid reason.5'26 Of special gravity were instances when naval officials at the ports, with the complicity of their superiors, surreptitiously combined contracting with their official duties. In Colbert's day, an intendant at Rochefort appointed a friend by the name of Darras to a post at the arsenal; soon after his appointment, this same Darras became the holder of important contracts for the delivery of canvas and timber to Rochefort. "Darras received at the dockyard where he was employed the merchandise which he himself supplied."27 There were instances of entente between workmen in the dockyards and certain naval contractors.28 Seignelay, apparently with justice, pointed to " ca great many disorders' " in the award of contracts at Rochefort.29 "To steal from the state has always appeared an entirely licit act"; the government of Louis XIV "strong though it was with a guardian of state property as vigilant as Colbert, did not escape the avidity of the contractors."30 Scattered indications of influence and corruption such as these probably give only scant hint at the types of extra-legal dealings that were carried on. It is difficult to assess their influence on the contract system with precision, but by way of negative assessment, it can be affirmed that influence and corruption did not result in the establishment of a monopoly or timber trust comparable to that with which the British navy had to deal.81 Down to the end of the 2*D3 2 (Marine) fol. 192; B3 388 (Marine) fol. 170. 25fi3 388 (Marine) fol. 170. An arrêt du conseil of 25 March 1725 forbade "commissioners of the navy to permit individuals to cut their bois de futaie, and dispense them . . . from the Ordonnance" Reiterated by the arrêt of 15 January 1726. Baudrillart, I, 252, 256. 26Memain, La Marine de guerre, 303. ^Ibid., 305. ^Ibid., 304. ^Ibid., 305. ^Ibid., 625.

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ancien régime, the French navy retained firm control over the contractors and the contract system. No merchant or company of merchants was ever able to control domestic timber markets and dictate prices to the navy, as was the case in England. Naval administrators vigorously opposed large-scale monopoly practices, recognizing that they would result in high prices. Favoured by the scattered nature and large extent of domestic forest resources, and supported by the arbitrary power of the state, the navy always forestalled that eventuality. Collusion between contractors was roundly condemned by the Ordonnance of 1689 and numerous other enactments. Merchants involved in such dealings, if discovered, suffered heavy pecuniary penalties.32 In 1701 an arrêt warned that "many merchants of timber have been condemned to heavy fines for monopolies and secret associations."33 After the auction sale of an old ship, Michel Bégon, the Intendant, "condemned the timber merchants of Rochefort to a fine of 1,000 livres for having by monopoly hindered the sale."34 Injunctions against collusion appear, however, to have had something less than the desired effect. In the last decade of the ancien régime, one naval official complained that it was then only too commonplace to see merchants at public auction bidding against each other when, in fact, they had previously agreed among themselves on the prices to be bid. "If a single one among them does not enter into the accord, all the others unite against him and run the risk of loss, which divided among many becomes negligible for each, in order to force conclusion of a ruinous contract by the one among their number who is the object of their animosity and whom they wish to ruin."35 The navy was not opposed to the principle of monopoly. As long as, and in so far as monopoly was believed to serve the naval interest satisfactorily, it was not only permitted but encouraged. Contractors were sometimes granted the exclusive privilege of exploiting naval timber from a single province. Such powers, it was believed, encouraged thorough exploitation of available resources but did 81

Albion, 57-60 and chap, vin passim. ^Ordonnance of 1689, livre XVIII, title I, art. 10, in Mémain, La Marine de guerre, 305 (note). Associations of workers, of course, were likewise banned. Cf. Ordonnance of 1765, livre VIII, art. 695. ^ Arrêt notable du conseil, 3 May 1701. 34Quoted by Baudrillart, I, 142-3. ™T>* 5 (Marine) fol. 64.

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not place overweening powers over sources of supply in the hands of any one entrepreneur. But, on the disadvantageous side, provincial monopolies improved the bargaining position of the entrepreneur vis-à-vis the forest proprietor and created a situation highly unfavourable to the latter's interests. Until the Seven Years' War the navy endeavoured to restrain the avarice of its contractors by directing its provincial representatives to oversee and mediate between forest proprietor and naval contractor.36 If difficulties over price could not thus be overcome, it was provided by law that a committee of experts could be convened to establish a just price.37 But from the proprietor's point of view the prices fixed by these experts were often unjust, since the figure was regulated primarily by the scale of prices at which the navy had agreed to buy the merchant's timber; the opinions of the experts were influenced more by the merchant's than by the proprietor's interests. Their decisions were founded on the assumption that a reasonable margin of profit for the merchant, within the fixed scale of prices he was paid by the navy, was inviolable. It was assumed, conversely, that the profit margin of the proprietor was reducible. Naval officials involved in establishing these price ceilings sometimes wilfully discriminated against proprietors. One official admitted the "possibility" that such discrimination had existed: the ingénieurs constructeurs have not always given, in the exercise of their functions, the regard that all representatives of the [naval] administration must give to subjects of the king. . . . They have sometimes maintained, in the execution of their charges, the harshness and despotism that one acquires only too easily in the arsenals of the navy. But in general the proprietors who complained most, perhaps those who have been more heard, are very unjust. . . . These proprietors have wanted to exact prices for their timber more than double what the contractors are able to give. Because in a great number of trees marked for the navy, there will be found one or two rare trees which render great pieces, they have maintained that all their trees must be purchased at those rates.38

Some proprietors undoubtedly did complain unjustly, as our memoirist pointed out, and were themselves guilty of the avarice they 36

D3 15 (Marine) fol. 6. Concerning the navy's provincial commissaires: Etat sommaire, 32-3. 37Arrêt du conseil, 21 September 1700, art. VI. Cf. D3 5 (Marine) fol. 88. 3 *D3 5 (Marine) fol. 63.

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condemned in the contractors. But it should be emphasized that the ability of most proprietors to follow their inclinations in this respect were far more restricted than those of the merchant-contractors. The tenor of the statement quoted fairly exemplifies the navy's inclination to slight and disparage the complaints of forest proprietors; it illustrates also the navy's responsiveness to the interests of its contractors. Naval officials were, after all, more closely associated with their contractors than with the hundreds of forest proprietors who were involved in exploitations of masts and timber. They were directly involved on the side of the contractor in his frequent and often bitter bargaining with forest owners, and the very nature of the navy's rights, as the only authorized buyer of the proprietor's finest trees, naturally brought collision between naval and proprietary interests. Naval officials were well aware, as one remarked, that the interests of the contractors were "very much personal" and showed "very little patriotisme"-*9 but the contractor was, nevertheless, the means by which the navy's needs could be satisfied. The lower the prices paid by the contractors for standing timber trees, the smaller the cost of timber and masts for the dockyards of the king. Naval officials and their contractors both sought to acquire the property of the forest owner at the lowest possible price. The whole price-fixing procedure used before the 1760's had the effect of merely preventing the merchant from gaining exorbitant profits at the expense of the forest owner. Such protection was no great consolation to the owner of forested lands when the system not only failed to guarantee his profit, as it did that of the navy's contractor, but endowed the contractors with active naval support against which most proprietors were nearly impotent. Under this system of pricing, the navy could not "diminish the prices paid in contracts [with timber merchants] without diminishing the value of standing trees";40 any reduction in contract prices was passed on by the merchant, with the support of the navy, to the proprietor. Forest proprietors enjoyed a brief period of relief from these exactions during the Seven Years' War. The British blockade of the French coast interrupted coastal shipments of timber and finally 39D3 7 (Marine) fol. 122.

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D3 5 (Marine) fol. 63.

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induced the navy to halt exploitations and cancel timber contracts. Naval officials were recalled from the provinces to the ports, and "at the solicitation of interested parties,"41 which obviously included forest proprietors, the system of naval pre-emption was relaxed; trees anywhere in the realm could then be cut without regard for their designation as naval reserve. Forest owners took advantage of this opportunity and occasioned what one naval official later described as "an inestimable loss for the navy."42 But the respite of the proprietors was short. Not only was the system of naval pre-emption re-established at the conclusion of peace in 1763, but economy became a dominant theme of naval administration, with disastrous results for the owners of timber trees. Before 1763 the complaints of proprietors were mild compared to the hue and cry of the half-dozen years thereafter. The Duc de Choiseul, as minister of the navy, was then bent on reviving the navy but lacked the financial resources to achieve his purpose. The whole problem of acquiring timber "was reduced to the calculation of cost."43 As a measure of economy, naval officials who had regularly been stationed in various parts of France to superintend timber exploitations and mediate between proprietor and contractor were not detached from the ports for that service. The navy sought to hold the line on timber prices, and if possible to reverse the long-term upward trend, which for many years had been a cause of frequent complaint on its part. Prices actually were pushed down, temporarily. Monopoly was the means employed. A handful of merchants loosely organized as a single company became fournisseurs généraux with the right to supply practically all timber cut for the navy in domestic forests; each of these merchant entrepreneurs enjoyed the exclusive right to timber exploitations in a large region, usually several provinces.44 The success of this company in delivering timber to the dockyards at low prices was achieved at the cost of the forest proprietors. The right to mark timber trees as naval reserve, which the contractors obtained,45 was 41D3 3 (Marine) fol. 184. «D3 3 (Marine) fol. 184. 43 /6zd., a comment by one of Choiseul's critics. 44D3 3 (Marine) fols. 184-5, 197; D» 16 (Marine) "Mémoire sur le rétablissement de la Marine." joined to letter dated 25 June 1763; B1 73 (Marine) fols. 226-39; Bi 74 (Marine) fols. 282-5. 45D3 3 (Marine) fol. 197.

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a powerful weapon against the owner of forested land, and in the absence of naval commissioners in the provinces, the forest owner was at the untender mercy of the entrepreneur. These methods "gave rise to complaints and vexation everywhere,"46 and in the 1770's the navy reverted to a system of competition among its contractors. But the treatment accorded to proprietary interests by the navy in the 1760's left its mark indelibly, for in those years the clearing of forested land became "la mode" among discontented forest owners, who harboured ample economic arguments for converting their woodland to agricultural use.47 In fairness to the naval administrators, however, it must be emphasized that proprietary complaints of injustice, real and pretended alike, all but disappeared in the last decade or so of the ancien regime. Their passing was related to prodigality during the ministries of Sartine (1774-80) and Castries (1780-6), and to the growth of the demand for timber during the War of American Revolution. These factors, and the increasing depletion of the forests, not only had the effect of raising the prices of naval timber to unprecedented heights, but demonstrated the need for tact and moderation on the navy's part to encourage co-operation and goodwill on the part of the proprietors. The lessons learned by naval administrators in those years found statutory expression in the Règlement of 1786, proscribing or ameliorating many oppressive details of the navy's contract system of which forest owners had long and bitterly complained. To the merchant, the protective cover of naval solicitude was welcome indeed, in so far as it minimized costs and maximized profits. But contractors were well aware that naval authorities were responsive to their needs only when the satisfaction of those needs conformed to the interest and convenience of the navy. The merchants, in some cases from costly experience, knew that the navy could be indifferent to their welfare. Certain fiscal practices of the navy were particularly damaging to the contractors, who often complained bitterly over the slowness of payment for timber already delivered to the dockyards. Tardy payments sometimes brought exploitations to a halt and occasion**Ibid., fol. 184. ^Ibid., fols. 183-5, 197; D3 7 (Marine) fol. 122. See chapter v below on the clearing movement after the middle of the eighteenth century.

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ally forced the contractors to the verge of bankruptcy. In 1719 a naval official wrote from Le Havre to the Conseil de la Marine,48 stating that a merchant by the name of Perault was in dire need of funds to pay the debts he had contracted in his exploitations, and that unless immediate attention were given to the remission of funds payable and overdue, his deliveries of timber would entirely cease.49 This instance can perhaps be excused on the ground that the Conseil of the Regency was singularly inept and had very limited funds with which to work. But similar situations, not less damaging and troublesome to the contractors, arose in other periods and are more difficult to explain. In 1678, at a time when the navy's greatest minister was lavishing funds on the fleet, a naval official writing to Colbert observed that slowness of payment "has contributed a great deal to the delay" of timber shipments.50 Another type of abuse in payments is brought to light in a letter from an Italian timber merchant. Writing from Rome in June 1750, the merchant explained that he had agreed the previous year to furnish timber to the French navy on condition that an advance of 40 thousand livres be paid; with indignation, he asserted that his exploitations had been under way for 6 months and the "advance" had not yet been paid.51 In July 1758, the intendant at Brest reported that the merchants who supplied that arsenal were involved in great financial difficulty: "being unpaid, the greater part are not in a position to maintain their enterprises."52 In slowness of payments, the decade after the Seven Years' War was a particularly unhappy time for the contractors. A series of 48 Conseil de la Marine, one of the seven Conseils du Gouvernement under the Regency; organized under statutes of 1715-16, this body of functionaries was a central executive agency for the navy. Lacour-Gayet, 30 seq. 49B3 256 (Marine) fols. 256-7. 50B3 30 (Marine) fol. 148. 51B7 374 (Marine) letter of Henry de Pietro, dated Rome, 3 June 1750. 52 3 D 1 (Marine) from page 8 of the 9-page letter of Intendant Hocquart, dated Brest, 17 July 1758, inserted with other loose papers in this bound volume. Contractors were not the only persons affected by slow payment. In a letter to the minister dated 18 August 1758, Hocquart observed that ". . . yesterday at 2 o'clock in the afternoon . . . about 300 wives of workers at this port . . . [tried to enter my home] asking that their husbands be paid so that their children and they themselves would not perish of famine. . . . Despair was painted on the countenances of many. There were also very indecent comments." B3 538 (Marine) fol. 262.

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disasters at the hands of the British brought naval activity, and payments, to a standstill. Debts accumulated. But some wartime obligations remained unpaid for years after the peace, in spite of the fact that a naval "renaissance" was undertaken by the Duc de Choiseul in 1761. As late as 1766, legitimate debts incurred for wartime transport of timber were still undischarged.53 Neglect of obligations discouraged contractors and in 1769 the general rise in prices ". . . on all naval merchandise whatsoever" was attributed to "the lack of confidence occasioned by delay in payments for earlier deliveries."54 In 1771 a timber merchant of Bayonne who had completed a large part of his shipments complained of nonpayment,55 and the same merchant, writing again in both January and April of 1774, stated that he had been reduced to borrowing from his friends, whose resources were exhausted. "There remains no other resource for me [and] you must understand Monsieur, that the fulfilment of my contract has been rendered impossible."56 By 1774 the cumulative effects of slow payment had embittered the relations of the navy with its contractors to such an extent that a great number of merchants were either unwilling or unable to commit themselves to further deliveries of timber. It was not mere forgetfulness and neglect that gave rise to these difficulties in matters of payment. The very nature of the navy's financial system allowed obligations to accumulate. Payments fell in arrears as a matter of routine; funds available to the navy for the purchase of timber in any given year were ordinarily applied to defray obligations incurred in the previous year.57 But even such relatively prompt payment was not always possible ; the navy's own 53R3 571 (Marine) fols. 41-56; Bernis, II, 258; Loir, ix-x. In 1764 a large debt in the amount of 115 thousand livres, due to a company of sailmakers at Marseille, which had been contracted in 1759, remained unpaid. B1 69 (Marine) fols. 122, 195, 255. 54B1 74 (Marine) fol. 233. 55 1 B 77 (Marine) fol. 34. On the demands of two merchants for contractual guarantees of "punctual payment," fol. 122. 56 A comment on this merchant's complaint by the intendant at Rochefort reveals at least one official attitude toward slow payment: "There is no doubt. Monseigneur, that this deprivation of payment does not make it impossible for this merchant to continue his operations . . . nor does it oblige the cancellation of the contract." B3 612 (Marine) fols. 77-8, 88. 57 5 B 9 (Marine) "Situation du département de la Marine," copy of memorandum sent to the king by Turgot, 15 August 1774. Turgot held the naval portfolio briefly in 1774.

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requests for funds were, during a considerable part of the eighteenth century, often slashed by harassed ministers of finance, who were highly critical of naval expenditures and were finding it increasingly difficult to match disbursements, even authorized disbursements, with funds.58 After the middle of the eighteenth century, naval payments often fell not merely one, but many years in arrears. The receipts of the navy department, like the revenues of the monarchy as a whole, tended to fall short of meeting expenditures and the debts of the department were commonly large; obligations contracted independently by the ports added substantially to those of the central administration. But mounting indebtedness and the annual discrepancies between receipts and expenditures did not diminish disbursements. On the contrary, naval expenditure enormously increased in the last two decades of the ancien régime.™ Confusion was added to complexity when the available funds were distributed unevenly in partial or token payments on individual debts of earlier years, with priority given to some obligations on grounds other than the age of the obligation.60 The evils of the financial system were forcibly brought to the attention of naval administrators by the plight of the contractors in the late 1760's, when even the great contractors, whose influence and financial reserves had long tended to shield them from the full effects of slow payment, became alarmed; they agitated in earnest 58

The traditional antagonism between the departments of finance and the navy contributed to the reduction of naval estimates. Relations between the two departments, especially as regards financial matters, were particularly bitter after 1780. In 1784 the contrôleur général privately sent a report on naval expenditures to at least one naval officer, requesting annotation and suggestions for economy. G. 131 (Marine) fol. 182; E 205 (Marine) "Réponses de M. le Maréchal de Castries." 59 Expenditures increased about 17 million livres to a total of 38 million between 1774 and 1777, and passed 180 million during the war (1782). Peace brought reductions, but in 1786 they still stood around 86 million. There is much variation in available figures on expenditures: cf. E 206 (Marine) "Etat des fonds que la Finance a fournier" and "Fonds réellement reçus du Trésor Royal." 60 When the funds available were not sufficient to meet all debts, a merchant whose services were essential could obtain priority in payment by refusing to enter into further contracts. This weapon was less effective for timber merchants than for certain other contractors, such as manufacturers of iron products, whose capital investment and technical services were not easily duplicated. The system of payment left the door open for contractors to exercise whatever "influence" they could muster to obtain early payment. See B1 73 (Marine) fols. 226-39, by way of illustration.

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for punctual payment, and their pleas of financial need were reinforced by their reluctance to sign contracts. The uncertainty of payment became so acute and the navy's credit so bad in the ministry of Bourgeois de Boynes (1770-4) that many merchants were unwilling to deal with the navy at all, and those who did asked high prices, large advances, and contractual guarantees of prompt payment, with interest to be paid on any future obligations standing unpaid for more than six months.61 The situation became so serious that an attempt was actually made to reform the financial system. "In order to procure more advantageous contracts for the king," Boynes undertook "to abolish the current practice of paying the expenses of previous years with the funds of the current year,"62 and substituted a system employing funds for the payment of current expenses.63 Though Boynes agreed "to attach himself unalterably to this [improved] system beginning in 1772," he utterly crushed his chances of doing so, and whatever merit the change implied, when he promised the contrôleur général "to set aside [defer] the payment of eleven millions in debts" incurred in previous years!64 The timber contractors, "discouraged or ruined by the lateness of payments, refused to deal with the navy."65 Some abandoned the timber traffic entirely; others either refused to bid at auction sales where the product of royal forests was sold, or covertly bought timber suitable for naval shipbuilding for diversion to other uses.66 In consequence, said a memoirist in 1774, "the ports lacked construction timber, and the little on hand was so badly assorted that vessels which had been under construction or repair for many years could not be finished."67 In 1775, the minister was advised "to liquidate the obligations of the navy for 1770 and 1771"(!) and "at the same time [to] assuage the antagonism of the timber merchants over payments due them for the last three years."68 He was further advised that «IB* 73 (Marine) fols. 226 seq.\ 1A1 73 (Toulon) letters of the minister dated 6 and 7 August 1775. 62 5 B 9 (Marine) "Situation du département de la Marine," dated 15 August 1774. Mlbid. Mlbid. SSB1 83 (Marine) fol. 117. This memoir entitled "Transport des Bois de Marine" (1776), sent to the king by Sartine, is marked by exaggeration, but its general sense is supported by other evidence: cf. B1 81 (Marine) fols. 66 228-9; B3 612 (Marine) fols. 77-8. B1 83 (Marine) fols. 16, 117. 68 wibid., fol. 117. B! 81 (Marine) fols. 228-9.

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the problem of procurement could be solved merely by paying contractors for the timber already delivered; "without any other assistance, these same contractors, with the motive of self-interest, will then seek in every way to augment their contracts."69 The simple expedient of enlarging the budget did, in fact, produce a solution, a temporary solution. The confidence of contractors was apparently revived when payments were made on long-standing debts,70 and perhaps the contractors found the prospects of large wartime contracts hard to resist. Large new contracts were signed. But the traditional system of post-payment was resumed. The irresponsibility of the navy's financial system, comparable to that of the monarchy as a whole, was at once the weakest aspect of the navy's administration of contracts, and the source of gravest difficulty in the relations of the navy with its contractors. The "system" of naval comptabilité defies precise evaluation, with "independent" accounts maintained at Versailles and the ports, with omissions and purposeful distortions in both sets of incomplete accounts, the whole complicated by the post-payment system, by disguised borrowing, and by distinctions between ordinary and "extraordinary" expenditure. It was not without cause that Galonné declared the navy presented "an intolerable abyss" for his department.71 The financial system complicated matériel problems in many important respects, and as it became hopelessly fuddled at the end of the old régime, it helped to render naval contracts more speculative and to increase the cost of masts and timber. In its non-fiscal features, the naval contracting system appears to have been better organized and more efficient. The authoritarian methods characteristic of Colbert's administration, in many respects elaborated or simply preserved by his successors, proved effective in handling many problems of supply. Increasing detail and formality at both the dockyards and Versailles during the eighteenth century brought few departures from the administrative methods established in naval practice during the days of Colbert. Corruption and the exercise of "influence" augmented the cost and reduced the efficiency of the navy's organization of supply, and **Ibid. ™B1 83 (Marine) fol. 117. During the years 1778-80, 18,363 thousand livres were used to discharge obligations incurred prior to 1778. E 205 (Marine) "Fonds remis par le Trésor Royal," dated 1 January 1781. 7l Etat sommaire, 628.

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occasioned waste in the employment of timber, but failed to halt the wheels of administration. Those wheels sometimes rolled heavily on the forest proprietors, but complaints did not modify or seriously interfere with the navy's methods or its success in satisfying its needs. Naval administration, though inefficient and corrupt in many respects by modern standards, appears to have worked more effectively than certain other branches of French administration in the ancien régime. It embodied many relatively modern concepts of bureaucratic order. Limitations imposed on the navy's budget by the state had the effect of encouraging efficiency in many matters of detail; economy was a pervasive and very influential theme of naval management during a good part of the first three quarters of the eighteenth century. Crucial to the effectiveness of naval organization during the whole period from 1660 to 1789 was the nonvenality of naval offices72 and the integrity of a large body of technicians and administrators who made a career of the service. Many officials, in their correspondence, memoirs, and procès verbaux,, evidence an assertiveness and vigour that is striking in its contrast to the often sluggish performance of venal incumbents found in other branches of government. Inspectors of masts and timber at the dockyards, commissioners and carpenters in the forests, naval architects, and a host of other professional officers executed their responsibilities in a highly creditable manner. Naval officials naturally fell in with the official policy of putting the interest of the service first, and they trod on the interest of forest owners and contractors alike with little compunction. Notwithstanding fiscal confusion and the ponderous administrative organization of the monarchy of which they were a part, and in spite of the rascals among them who indulged in more than a little graft on the side, these men managed to satisfy the navy's needs for masts and timber and built ships that were among the finest in Europe. It was a compliment to them, as well as to French science in naval architecture, that British naval officers so frequently extolled the superior qualities of French-built fighting ships.73 72 Offices of commissaire were created for sale in March 1702, and many other salable naval posts were created for a few years thereafter, but an edit of April 1716 "put an end to the venality of naval offices." Etat sommaire, 382-5. 73Hodges and Hughes, 80, 108-9, 118-19.

CHAPTER FOUR

Transport of Naval Timber and Masts

FRANCE ALONE, of the maritime powers of Western Europe, enjoyed the double advantage of vast domestic forests and numerous long navigable rivers by which timber and masts could be brought down to the sea. Most of the forests could be reached from the Seine, the Loire, the Garonne, and the Saône-Rhône waterways and their canals. Other rivers, such as the Moselle, Somme, Vilaine, and Charente, did much to complete the network. These rivers and their tributaries fanned into the roughly rectangular bulk of France and from their banks contractors and their axemen foraged far overland in search of timber for the navy. Great trees cut in the fastness of mountainous Auvergne, in the Massif Central, served as naval masts. From the upper reaches of the western Pyrenees, tall fir masts were floated down the Adour and Gave to the port of Bayonne. Even the remote land-locked forests of Champagne, Burgundy, and Franche-Comté, more than 400 miles from the sea, provided timber trees that were felled and dragged to the rivers for descent to the Mediterranean. But of the three great naval dockyards, only Rochefort could be directly supplied with large quantities of timber from inland provinces by river communications alone, and even Rochefort, on the little River Charente, could obtain only a small, and progressively smaller part of its essential supplies from the Charente basin. Brest and Toulon were isolated from large internal waterways by many miles of sea.1 France was not alone, of course, in possessing naval iToulon occasioned less difficulty than Brest, being removed from the usual theatre of enemy fleet action, and less expense, since the comparative calm of the Mediterranean permitted the shipment of timber from Aries to Toulon in rafts or lighters, a procedure not possible in the supply of Brest. Brun, I, 278.

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bases removed from major inland communications and sources of supply. Other powers suffered comparable difficulty since nature did not often grant deep and spacious harbours, like Brest and Toulon, at river mouths, and still less often preserved them from destruction by the downrush of silt and debris. Of the major dockyards, Brest occupied the most dangerously exposed position and, as will presently be shown, occasioned the greatest expense and difficulty in matters of timber and mast supply.2 As is usual in lumbering operations, transportation by land, by inland waterway, and finally by sea to the shipbuilding yards added greatly to the cost. When timber had to be hauled 6 or 8 leagues, and sometimes twice that distance, over the roads, the cost of overland transport alone could easily exceed the value of the standing trees.3 Descent by canal and river to the coast could again equal this cost. To this was added the expense of loading the timber aboard a coastal vessel and shipping it from the river mouth to the dockyard. In wartime these coastal shipment charges were, of course, enormously increased. The aggregate transportation charges could easily amount to several times the value of the tree as it stood in the forest.4 ^In 1763 the Havre-Brest passage cost from 10 to 11 sous the cubic foot; the following year 11-12. Regarding these costs, and those for various other routes see: B3 561 (Marine) fols. 222, 316; D3 5 (Marine) fols. 21-2; B1 69 (Marine) fol. 26. 3 Overland transport charges varied widely in different periods, and in different parts of France within any given year. In Colbert's day, the voituriers, or teamsters, received 25 to 30 sous a day for a pair of oxen engaged in the work. In the eighteenth century, payment was usually made at a specified rate varying with the difficulty of the country. D3 1 (Marine) fol. 247; D3 12 (Marine) fol. 70; Mémain, La Marine de guerre, 592-3. The relationship of cartage charges and timber values is evident in the following table, taken from D3 3 (Marine) fol. 108. The columns headed Leagues represent leagues of distance from navigable waterways; the others show prices paid, for felled and roughly shaped timber, by the cubic foot. Leagues Sous Leagues Sous Leagues Sous 4 20 9 15 13 10 5 19 10 14 14 8 6 18 11 13 15 6 7 17 12 12 16 4 8 16 ^Conversion of logs in the forest to minimize transport costs was widely, but not uniformly practised in France. IE 236 (Rochefort) fol. 68; D3 2 (Marine) fol. 193; D3 4 (Marine) fol. 34; Duhamel du Monceau, De l'exploitation des bois, II, 641, 644-5. The Dutch only "grossly" converted the timber they

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The first lap of the journey, from the forest to the river banks, was most laborious and difficult. Nearly all roads were poorly maintained by the corvée of French peasantry, and could be negotiated by masts and timber only when frozen or dry.5 Wet weather transformed many into bogs, completely impassable to all but foot or equestrian travel. At best the roads were a continuum of gravelled ruts and chuck-holes, over which pieces for the ribs and keels of ships could be moved only with the greatest effort. Even the inducement of a special scale of high prices for the contractors did not bring some of the largest timber pieces to the rivers, for it was found to be physically impossible to move them over the uneven terrain.6 The navy often found it necessary to build special roads in the Pyrenees for the transit of masts. The overland carriage of timber was performed on contract by local inhabitants, who normally used their own timberwains and animals. Local inhabitants were expected to render this service, whether voluntarily or by force of law, for it was scarcely practicable for the navy to have vehicles and draught animals of its own available in all the scattered parts of the country where trees were cut. But for the local inhabitants, the necessity of transporting timber was sometimes an onerous chore, even though they were paid. It was impossible for the rural populace to supply animals and vehicles at certain seasons of the year, a fact that naval administrators tended to ignore. Timber cuts were normally made in the winter season when the sap was down, but actual shipments were made at all practicable seasons. Colbert, in the early period of his administration, was not disposed to heed the complaints of local people whose interests were infringed by naval exploitations. He was in brought down via the Rhine because the wind-driven sawmills of Holland could cut the pieces at a cost 80 per cent lower than that of up-river labour; moreover, Rhine tolls were often levied by the piece, rather than by the cubic foot, making the Dutch method even more reasonable. D3 8 (Marine) fols. 157-74. On British practice: Albion, 81, 102 seq. 5 Public roads were maintained, primarily, by unpaid labour; some few were cared for by cantonniers, as in Burgundy, Languedoc, and the généralité of Chalons. See, Histoire économique, I, 295. Cf. Letaconnoux, Régime de la corvée, 13 and passim. 6fi3 769 (Marine) fol. 179; B* 96 (Marine) fols. 13 seq. In a forest of Armagnac a large quantity of choice timber was reserved for the navy in 1760, but "because of the immense size of the pieces they could not be transported." Eighteen years later they were still in the forest. D3 4 (Marine) fol. 35.

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haste, and in his view the money payment they received was "infinitely larger than whatever small damage they sustain."7 This view was substantially that of the navy during the greater part of the ancien régime. In later years, Colbert's own views, and those of his son were, however, more moderate. In 1680 Seignelay wrote to the king, reporting that when peasants refused to render the transportation service, "intendants decree ordinances to force them to do so. Knowing that Your Majesty does not approve these methods, I have made a small advance for the purchase of animals by the entrepreneurs."8 Indeed, at about that time an order was issued forbidding the intendants to employ the peasantry against their will in these works of transportation.9 The rural carters may well have taken advantage of this voluntary system by demanding higher prices for the service they rendered to the navy. In that case they were themselves partly responsible for the reimposition of the compulsory system in 1690, after death had removed Seignelay from the direction of affairs. The minister who succeeded Seignelay, and those of the eighteenth century, were far less mindful of the interests of these rural carriers. By an arrêt of 1693 "seigneurs, farmers, and others" were compelled to furnish conveyances for the navy's timber.10 This service thus became a special type of corvee, less onerous than other such services, since payment was made, but none the less compulsory. The burden fell on seigneurs, communities, and peasantry alike. Though the system seldom weighed so heavily as the corvée des grands chemins, there were, nevertheless, incidents that caused bitterness and real hardship. But in spite of opposition the system was sustained, with one notable intermission, to the end of the old régime. This single intermission was a by-product of opposition against the corvée proper. Deriving strength from the increase in road construction and use, this movement found "enlightened" spokesmen and guides during the 1760's in the ranks of the physiocrats, notably in Mirabeau and Dupont de Nemours.11 Action was ^Colbert, III, pt. I, 196. G. 184 (Marine) Seignelay to the king, Rochefort, 9 May 1680. Cf. Vignon, I, 77. 9 G. 184 (Marine) Seignelay to the king, Rochefort, 9 May 1680. ^Arret du conseil, 1 February 1693. Baudrillart, I, 715. n Mirabeau's "Mémoire sur la corvée" (1760) and Dupont de Nemour's "De l'administration des chemins" (1767) were particularly influential. See Lesort, fase, vii, 52-3. 8

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taken in July 1775 when Turgot addressed a circular to all intendants authorizing suspension of the corvée "wherever it existed."12 The following February another enactment suppressed the old corvée entirely but at the same time, by way of retrenchment, substituted a money payment based on the vingtièmes.13 In interpreting the first of these laws, the intendants apparently favoured the navy by making an exception of compulsory timber transport, since payment was given for that service. But the second enactment was construed by the intendants to mean suppression of all corvée services, including that for the navy.14 The carriers, seeing the opportunity offered them by the second enactment, refused to provide transport for the navy's timber unless larger payments were made. The navy, realizing that the whole structure of costs was threatened, refused to raise the payments. As a result, the overland shipment of timber and masts was brought to a halt. In May 1776, Sartine, Secretary of State for the Marine, sent a vigorous complaint to the king describing the plight of the navy: In the provinces, since the publication of the edict suppressing the corvées, conveyances are refused to the navy. From all parts of the realm the letters from the ports, the representations of commissioners . . . and the complaints of contractors proclaim the total loss of the timber exploited for the navy . . .; the loss of this rare and precious commodity . . . portends the ruin of the contractors . . . and a very early stoppage of work at the ports. . . . I beg Your Majesty to authorize me to order . . . provincial intendants to continue to assist the transport of timber for the navy whenever it may be required.15 This mémoire met with royal approval and orders were sent to the intendants on 17 May 1776, authorizing the navy to force the local inhabitants to provide transport.10 The navy's right to exact the service was not again disturbed. 12

Lesort, fase, vii, 53. >Ibid. Also Vignon, II, 173: "Work on the roads was almost totally abandoned." 14 By the first enactment, the intendants were empowered, not ordered, to suspend the corvée; they used this discretionary power on behalf of the navy. But in May 1776, three months after the second enactment, a petition was sent to the king from the navy asking that compulsory transport be restored and expressing bitterness over "the interpretation given by the intendants of the generalities to the edict suppressing the corvées. Signed copy of memoir to the 15 king in Bi 83 (Marine) fol. 117. Bi 83 (Marine) fols. 117-19. lQ Ibid.. fol. 117. The corvées were restored on 11 August 1776. Vignon, II, 173. l?

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Most communities and rural residents felt the burden of this exaction only infrequently. Exploitations in a particular locality, if once completed, might not be undertaken again until a large new growth of trees had been produced. Moreover, the naval corvée, unlike other compulsory services, meant considerable financial gain to those of the local populace engaged in the work. Nevertheless, the service was often performed with reluctance and complaint, particularly if it was required at inconvenient seasons. In times of war, the rural inhabitants along the principal highways, and particularly along those near the northeastern frontiers, were in an unenviable position, if they had to supply transport for timber in addition to service they had to supply for passing armies.17 Frequent complaints were registered with subdélégués and intendants, as well as with the navy. The rural populace complained that naval contractors caused the ruin of vehicles, overworked the oxen, and paid absurdly low prices for the service they required. In their turn, the naval contractors asserted that the local inhabitants failed to repair the roads, did not supply the animals and conveyances required, and were guilty of collusion and all manner of underhand dealings calculated to exact exorbitant prices for their services. A considerable amount of recriminatory evidence on these matters is scattered through the archives of the navy. The burden of this evidence makes it apparent that the rural inhabitants, though undoubtedly guilty of unfairness and extortion, suffered more serious and inescapable wrongs than they committed. Some of the difficulties may be attributed to the fact that local officials, whose function was to expedite the exploitation of timber and to ensure that the task of transportation was performed at moderate cost, tended to be more careful of the interests of naval contractors than they were of the welfare of the rural populace.18 The naval contractors simply made known to the navy the itiner17 In 1757, when it happened that the army and navy both wanted local transport at the same time, a proposal was made, obviously by the navy, that the available transport be divided equally; the scheme was of course rejected, since the needs of the two services fluctuated so widely as to make such a scheme impracticable. D3 1 (Marine) fol. 177. 18 One minister of the navy, the Marquis de Moras, explained his inclination to favour contractors by confessing in 1757 that "the complaints which the merchants frequently address to me appear much more authentic because the difficulties they encounter bring about a delay very prejudicial to the service with which they are charged." D3 1 (Marine) fol. 69.

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ary their timber should follow, and the numbers of conveyances required, and the navy (usually its regional field representative) requested the intendants to procure all the facilities needed for shipment to the waterways.19 The intendants then issued orders to their sub délégué s in the local districts and they in turn divided the stated requirements of animals and vehicles more or less equitably among the parishes close to the locality where exploitations would take place and along the route over which the timber would be dragged.20 The contractors then undertook to negotiate contracts with the inhabitants of these parishes, but of course the matter of price often became a subject of dispute. If agreement could not be reached, the intendants or their subdélégués fixed a level of charges based on the season, the state of the roads, and the transportation prices current in the locality.21 This system did not accord entirely with the desires of either the contractor or the local carriers, but it placed restraints on the selfinterest of both parties; the navy, however, weighed the balance in favour of the contractor. From the navy's point of view, rises in the cost of transportation were almost certain sooner or later to increase the price of timber and masts delivered at the dockyards. It was, as one naval official remarked in 1761, "indispensable to fix the price of transport, whether by timberwain or water, in order not to put the contractors at the mercy of the carriers." A maximum on transportation charges "comforted the contractors," by restricting "the avarice of the carriers."22 It was highly desirable to have the contractors thus "comforted"; when they had reason to be satisfied with their profits they would not be apt to seek, nor likely to obtain, an increase in the timber prices specified in their contracts. In heavily forested localities where the local inhabitants were sparse and poor, the difficulties caused by naval exploitations increased, and at times dissatisfaction became acute. Such was the case with mast exploitations in the Pyrenees, where the populace wibid., fols. 58-9; B* 83 (Marine) fols. 117-19. The contractors' needs were made known to the intendant of the province by the naval commissioner supervising the contractors' exploitation, or by the intendant of a port. B1 83 (Marine) fol. 119. See Rouganne, 27-8, for examples. 20D3 15 (Marine) fol. 6. 2ifii 83 (Marine) fols. 118-19. 22D3 15 (Marine) fols. 6, 70; D3 1 (Marine) fols. 23, 247.

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was of an independent frame of mind and, throughout the ancien régime, showed much repugnance to the continual naval activity in their mountains. Heavy exploitations in the second half of the seventeenth century burdened inhabitants in many localities of the Pyrenees and formed the background of later complaints.23 When an enterprising merchant undertook exploitations early in 1720, he could not hire men, animals, or timberwains from the Pyreneans.24 In behalf of this contractor, the intendant25 issued a decree (28 May 1720) ordering "the Jurats of these communities [to] furnish all the workers . . . and likewise all the oxen needed for the exploitation of masts."26 The following September he found it necessary to issue another decree forbidding local inhabitants "moving to other valleys or to Spain" to avoid the exigencies of the service required by the navy.27 Nor was this the end of the trouble. Since the population of the area was widely scattered, it was deemed expedient by the navy's entrepreneur to retain the oxen along the transportation routes and at the scene of exploitations, rather than return them daily to distant owners. The animals, at work by day, could not forage for themselves, and their owners were ordered by the intendant to provide their feed. This was not the least in a long statement of grievances prepared by the irate Pyreneans and sent, without visible result, to the Comte de Toulouse, Admiral of France. It was not only unreasonable, they said, but unprecedented in all the eighty years of Pyrenees exploitations that they should be compelled to buy feed for the animals serving the entrepreneur and the navy.28 Some months later, in 1721, the intendant wrote to the navy giving assurances that he would "continue to give this entrepreneur all the protection of which he has 23 Memain, La Marine de guerre, 605 seq. On exploitations in the 1690?s: A. M. de Boislisle, Correspondance, I, 232-3. In 1671 Colbert mentioned to Colbert de Terrón a contractor's complaints that Pyrenees peasants "have hidden many times in the thickets . . . and have fired on him and on those who work under his orders." Colbert, III, pt. I, 386 (note). 24B3 267 (Marine) fol. 155. -3Lesseville, Intendant of Auch, Pau, and Basse Navarre. 26 The Conseil de la Marine approved this order, 25 June 1720. 27B3 267 (Marine) fol. 155. 28 The communities claimed that the heavy concentration of animals in their area and the great demand for feed produced "an extraordinary cherté" with the price of feed rising to 18 and ultimately to 30 sous the quintal. The Intendant Lesseville made the cryptic marginal comment on these claims: "This impost is just; there is no reason for complaint." B3 267 (Marine) fols. 158-9.

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need"; but added that unfortunately the entrepreneur in question "is not in a position to pay the workers who have been conscripted for the transport of masts," and suggested that since the local inhabitants were withholding their animals in default of payment, the navy would do well to make a remittance to its contractor.29 These were, even for the Pyrenees, instances of extraordinary abuse. With the reduction of French forests in the eighteenth century, timber trees useful to the navy gradually became more scarce along the existing routes of communication.30 As early as 1701 the 12 deputies to the Conseil de Commerce were "alarmed to see the beginning of an extraordinary scarcity of construction timber . . . particularly in the forests near the rivers."31 Generally, both the quantity and quality of readily accessible timber diminished, and the sites of exploitations had to be moved away from the coasts, waterways, and roads, and the timber transported over ever lengthening routes. In some provinces, notably in Auvergne and the Pyrenees, new roads were built to reach the forests. The problem of communications was particularly difficult in the mountains, where the absence of passable roads and navigable water routes stopped the navy and dissuaded many entrepreneurs32 from mast exploitations on a significant scale for periods of many years' duration, for example, in the Pyrenees from after the 1720's until the time of the Seven Years' War.33 The ingenuity of the engineers, the energy of the peasant labourers, and the financial 20/fcirf., fols. 156-9. 30 Until 1720 the planting of trees along canals and rivers was forbidden on grounds that they obstructed navigation, but an arrêt of 3 May 1720 (and subsequent enactments) reversed this prohibition. Vignon, II, 70-1. However, if authorization to plant had a non-decorative purpose at all, it nevertheless had little effect in replenishing oak and fir. See the mass of documents in Z1E 298 (Arch Nat). sipio 256 (Arch Nat) "Mémoire des Députez au Conseil de Commerce sur les bois et forests," (1701). 32 The navy was usually financially unable to offer an entrepreneur any help during the first half of the eighteenth century in dealing with problems of communication. In the spring of 1732 Maurepas vetoed proposals for the exploitation of masts in the Pyrenees on the ground that the opening of roads could not then be financed by the navy. IE 116 (Rochefort) fols. 66-7. 33 For the extraction of masts in the 1770's, stone roads were constructed by the navy in the Pyrenees, with stoning one foot thick ("stones of choice") covered with 4 inches of gravel at an average cost of 4 livres la toise courante (1.949 meters). Costs increased as much as 20 per cent when stones were not at hand. Leroy, 45.

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resources of the entrepreneurs34 were extended to build roads and water routes that were liable to be clogged or swept away by snowslides and spring floods. Comparable difficulties were encountered elsewhere in France. In the early 1730's the navy was much attracted by the fine timber resources of Montbéliard, a principality jutting into France from the east between Alsace and Franche-Comté.35 Exploitation was long delayed because difficult roads separated the forests from the River Saône, the nearest navigable French waterway.36 The alternative route in France, via the River Doubs running close to the forests, was not then navigable for rafts of large timber. La Chaussade contracted in 1737 to render the Doubs navigable, and eventually succeeded in floating Montbéliard timber down the DoubsSaône-Rhône route for shipment from Aries to Toulon.37 The shipment of timber by canal and river did not usually involve the use of boats. Timbers were simply bound together with ropes or chains, the large on the bottom and the small on top, and floated down the waterways as rafts or in trains of rafts. In flottage?* such as this, the size of the rafts naturally varied with the size of the river and with the season of the year. On the Rhône, small rafts comprising only about 1,100 cubic feet of oak were used in the spring of 1742 ;39 on a great river like the Rhine, whose depth placed less restriction on size, rafts of timber were sometimes enormous, comprising hundreds of trees aggregating 30 or 40 thou84/6id., 68, 120. 35 3 B 389 (Marine) fols. 110-14. Louis, Duke of Wurtemburg, agreed in 1726 to sell some 3,000 trees from the principality of Montbéliard to one Nicholas Gilbert of Nancy, but it is doubtful whether exploitation of timber took place under naval auspices before the 1730's. D3 8 (Marine) fols. 198200. 36D3 14 (Marine) fols. 111-12. 37 It was first intended that these trees should be brought down by the Rhine to Dort, as had been done with Lorraine timber since 1728, but when it was discovered that the Doubs could be opened, the Rhine plan was abandoned. B3 383 (Marine) fols. 296-7; B3 389 (Marine) fols. 110-15; D3 14 (Marine) fols. 111-16. Cf. Monniot, 174, 177. 38 On the origin and historical development of flottage in France, see Gigot and the old Moreau volume. Leroy's work, 84-107 passim, includes excellent plates illustrating flottage methods employed in mast exploitations in the Pyrenees in the 1770's. 3 »B3 413 (Marine) fol. 400. The Rhône was very low in the spring of 1742, which may mean that these flottes were exceptionally small. On the little River Plaine, in the Vosges, trains of 1,000-1,200 planks were floated to Raon. Letaconnoux, "Transports en France,'* 269.

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40

sand cubic feet (600-1,000 tons). To permit the down-river passage of timber rafts in smaller waterways, it was often necessary7 to construct sluice-ways or locks at dams or shallow points along the route.41 Even so it was not always smooth sailing for timber rafts. Rapids and obstructions in the river might damage or break up the flotte, scattering valuable timber along the banks for miles.42 Low water sometimes caused long delays, and frequent toll stations made for slow progress down river: in 1719, there were no less than 32 stations along the Rhône River where timber was subject to inspection or duty.43 Naval contractors were exempt from tolls by virtue of "passports" issued by the navy in the name of the king and shown by the merchant or his representative at various toll points along the route.44 Nevertheless the trains were stopped and inspected, the accounting being at the charge of the king.45 The Seine, Loire, and Garonne, three of the four great French rivers, carried timber to supply two Atlantic seaboard dockyards, Rochefort and Brest, and the Rhône ran southward to the Mediterranean with cargoes of timber for the base at Toulon. Near the seaward end of each river was an entrepôt, or way station, where the timber was caught and held in storage until seagoing trans40 3 D 8 (Marine) fol. 157. Such flottes were much used by the Dutch. They sometimes encountered difficulty, even with pilots aboard, at Mainz and Rheinfels (fols. 169-73). Cf. Albion, 145-6. 41 Leroy, 67-84 passim; Monniot, 180-1. 42 A series of arrêts du conseil, 12 February 1681, 27 November 1744, and 14 August 1765, exhorted against misappropriation of timber thus scattered along the rivers, and imposed upon riverain communities the responsibility for notifying the proper authorities when stray pieces were found. AD. VII. 1 (Arch Nat), arrêts du conseil of 27 November 1744 and 14 August 1765; B3 412 (Marine) fols. 144-5; 5E2 15 (Rochefort) "Mémoire sur la Rivière de Creuse" (1724). 43 In thé passage down the Rhône in 1732, the aggregate duty levied on 48 cubic feet of oak amounted to 14 livres and 11 sous. The duties on plank, depending on size, ranged from 42 to 63 livres. On a single mast grossing 300 cubic feet 177 livres had to be paid. D3 6 (Marine) fol. 53. Cf. Brun, I, 156-7; IL 435 (Toulon) Règlement du roi, 29 September 1730. 44 Until the early eighteenth century, these passports were issued by the minister; in the Regency period they were issued by the Conseil de la Marine and thereafter, often, by naval commissaires stationed in various parts of the realm. Brun, I, 156-7. 45 The fermiers généraux suspected, with good reason, that timber merchants sometimes used naval passports illegally to exempt other wood from tolls. B3 551 (Marine) fols. 566-70; B* 74 (Marine) fol. 324; Brun, I, 156.

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pcrtation could be provided for the last leg of the trip by sea to the dockyard. Both Rouen and Le Havre served as entrepôts for timber on the Seine. Rafts from Champagne, Ile de France, Picardie, and western Normandy descended by the Seine as far as Rouen, where timber was piled on the "prairies" adjacent to the river.46 There the timber was inspected and, if suitable, was "provisionally" accepted by the navy and credited to the contractor's account. It was then taken down to Le Havre in small vessels to await the ships, since large seagoing vessels could not easily ascend the estuary and river to Rouen.47 Timber descending the Loire passed the city of Nantes and found its entrepôt two leagues below48 at the He dTndret, or at Paimbceuf, whence it was shipped to Rochefort or Brest. Shipments from the south-central provinces coming down the Garonne and Gironde were stopped at or near Bordeaux. Entrepôts for the lesser rivers, like the Adour and Gave and the Vilaine, were at Bayonne and Redon.49 In the southeast, timber descending the Rhône was usually stopped at Aries, and on the Languedoc canal at Agde, en route for Toulon or the galley base at Marseille.50 The main difficulty of freighting timber and masts from the coastal entrepôt to the dockyard was that they were large, and awkward in shape, and so were not easily accommodated in either the hatches or holds of cargo vessels. Small vessels could not load timbers in sufficient numbers to compete with larger ships, and were entirely unable to ship the great pieces which were so long that even the larger ships of the day could not load them through 46D3 3 (Marine) fol. 162; D^ 5 (Marine) fol. 17. 47 "No ship which takes more than eight feet of water can ascend to Rouen at all tides" (1764). B3 561 (Marine) fol. 221. Two Dutch vessels were turned away from Rouen in September 1764 because of their size. Fol. 245. Gabares, the vessels most often used for timber shipment by sea, required 10 or 12 feet of water, but could get in at high tide and work their way up the snaking lower course of the Seine. 48 3 D 2 (Marine) fol. 176. Indret, a narrow island 4,800 feet long and about 200 feet in width, was a timber entrepôt as early as the middle of the seventeenth century, and the site of iron foundries established by Sartine in 1777. B3 566 (Marine) fols. 109, 137, 157 (note) ; Etat sommaire, xxv. 49D3 5 (Marine) fol. 17; D3 2 (Marine) fol. 176. 5 °D3 2 (Marine) fol. 176. Marseille was a base for galleys until the 1760?s. Transport to Marseille and Toulon was entirely at the risk of the contractor, whereas on the Atlantic seaboard, sea transit was usually at the king's risk— only occasionally, as in the Choiseul period, at that of the entrepreneur. Transport for domestic timber was always at the king's risk in wartime.

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51

the hatches of their decks. These peculiar problems excluded most of the merchant ships from the mast and timber traffic, so special vessels were built or adapted for the purpose. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the enterprising Dutch designed flûtes for the commerce with Norwegian and Baltic ports. Such vessels were rare in the French merchant fleet, which seldom ran the northern sea lanes.52 Hence the French merchant marine could not assure the satisfaction of naval shipping needs in either the type or number of ships required for freighting timber and masts. During the first half of the eighteenth century the navy bought some timber carriers and built others, usually gabares of small or medium size,53 sometimes equipped like the Dutch flûtes with a vertical hatch or sabord near the stern through which large timber and masts could be embarked. In the eighteenth century these vessels, with the help of some French merchant ships and a few foreign shippers, carried the peacetime coastal traffic in timber and masts until the decade of the Seven Years' War.54 That war involved extraordinarily heavy shipping losses for the French and caused a post-war dearth of ships that created a serious bottleneck for timber shipments. To replace wartime losses, large shallow-draught flat-boats (bateaux plats], built during the war for a projected invasion of England, were pressed into the less glorious coastal timber traffic.55 Though designed to carry troops and munitions, these flat-bottomed craft were well suited for freighting timber. With a crew of about 14, they could carry 3,500 cubic Divide Boissonnadc et Charliat, 22; Jal, Glossaire nautique: "sabord." 52 See chapter iv below on French and foreign shipping in the northern trade. On Dutch shipping in general and the flute-type in particular see: Barbour, "Dutch and English Merchant Shipping," 261 seq.', and her Capitalism in Amsterdam, 19—20, with references there cited. 53 French gabares were often of shallow draught to facilitate and minimize risks in river ascents. IE 236 (Rochefort) fol. 68. 54 The inventory of rôles d'équipage, series CG, indicates that scores of cargo carriers were employed by the navy; many did service in the timber traffic. Flûtes were used throughout the eighteenth century, gabares only after 1730. Rarely were more than 15 of these vessels employed in any given year. Etat sommaire, 472-513. 55 The flat-boats were built at Boulogne, Rouen, Saint-Valéry, Le Havre, and Dunkerque with timber marooned during the war or drawn from forests near Dunkerque. About 6,000 workers constructed over 200 of the vessels (100 feet long, 22 to 24 wide). D* 15 (Marine) fol. 4; D* (Marine) fols. 1 and 2: Levot, 6-7.

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feet of oak, as much as the average French gabare, which might require twice as large a crew.56 Certain navy contractors, shrewdly calculating the low cost of operating flat-boats, obtained from the ministry (Choiseul and Praslin) long and profitable leases for their use at 2,000 livres a year.57 A single contractor rented 9 of these vessels in 1766, and at least 11 in each of the two succeeding years.58 The shortage of shipping in the 1760's, which these makeshift naval carriers helped to relieve, led to the development by the navy of a much more numerous auxiliary transport fleet, financed in the two decades of naval prosperity after the Seven Years' War, and designed to obviate reliance on foreign shipping and provide facilities that French merchant shipowners did not supply.59 Unlike the peacetime dearth of shipping, wartime shortages of ships recurred as regularly as the boom of British naval guns along the coasts. Maritime war with England nearly always created serious problems in the transit of timber from the river mouths to the naval dockyards. In time of war British ships-of-the-line took up stations off the coast of Brittany to blockade the port of Brest, or coursed up and down French coasts in squadrons in quest of prey. Privateers and cruisers, singly or in groups, searched for merchantmen or imprudent lesser fry that ventured out without naval chaperon. With the outbreak of war, timber carriers could not freely, or with sufficient frequency, convey their vital cargoes from the entrepôts to the construction yards. French merchant shipping all but disappeared from the coasts, either into ports or admiralty courts. The seas were left to profiteering neutrals, privateers, and the navies. 56

Scattered references indicate that flat-boat cargoes ranged from 3,000 to 4,200 cubic feet, with crews of 7 to 14 men. Gab ares manned by 16 to 30 carried 2,700 to 7,000 cubic feet. Neither flat-boats nor small gabares were suitable for mast shipments. B* 69 (Marine) fols. 14, 26, 217-18; B3 553 (Marine) fol. 53; B3 561 (Marine) fols. 45-6, 219-23. 57B3 592 (Marine) fols. 308-11; B1 69 (Marine) fols. 217-18. 58 3 B 592 (Marine) fol. 308. Contractors were also allowed to lease gabares at 3,000 livres a year. In 1769, two contractors, St. Gilles and Bondoux, owed nearly 60 thousand livres' rent in flat-boats and gabares for the years since 1765. 59 In the last two decades of the old régime, the navy's own transport fleet, flat-boats, flûtes, and gabares above all, carried most of the peacetime cargoes, including even some timber brought from the Baltic in the years 1783-5, when the navy had no less than 56 gabares in service. B4 272 (Marine) fols. 5-23 and Etat sommaire, 495-513 passim.

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War restricted the shipment of timber at the time of greatest need, since the opening of hostilities usually found the navy less than well prepared to turn its strength to good and long-sustained account. There were always ships in need of deal and plank, with weakened masts or broken spars, and below decks in many there was, ordinarily, the musty smell of rotting timber. In the yards and hangars, in harbour waters and near-by streams, where timber and masts were stored, there was likely to be just enough timber to meet peacetime needs; there was never enough to repair and reconstruct the older ships, and to build the new vessels required. Of course, when war broke out, special measures were taken to revive the navy and bring it up to fighting trim; new timber contracts, new forest exploitations, and larger shipments from the entrepôts were ordered. But months, even years, might pass before those orders were filled by harassed gabares or flûtes bringing timber to the ports. Before many months of war passed, the dockyards began to feel the pinch. Brest was at once the most important French dockyard, and the one most apt to suffer from timber shortage. Cargoes from Le Havre, close under the lee of the English shore, had scant chance of getting through to Brest in time of war, and those moving north toward Brest from southern entrepôts had little better chance. Shipments from Bordeaux to the yards at Rochefort travelled a shorter, more protected route, and had a safer run, but unescorted cargoes of masts or spars from Bayonne, and timber ships from Redon or even from Indret, could venture out only at dire peril. Toulon, in a (generally) less active theatre of war, was close to her sources of supply with Italian forests and the Rhône communication route close by. Toulon's position was worsened by the English acquisition of Gibraltar (1704) and Minorca (1708), but its lines retrieved some cover when the French conquered Minorca in 1756 and annexed Corsica in 1768. Exposed lines of supply were a grave weakness, the crippling effects of which were particularly evident in the Seven Years' War, a struggle which saw the wartime timber shortage at its worst. Early in the war, in May 1757, the minister urged port officials along the Atlantic seaboard to speed their shipments. "What value will our timber contracts have," he asked, "if costly timber supplies are exposed in this war, as in the last, to rotting at Le Havre."60 Such 6

°D3 1 (Marine) fol. 52.

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anxieties were quite justified. In the summers of both 1756 and 1757 the appearance of British fleets in the Mediterranean forced the suspension of traffic between Italian ports and Toulon.61 By 1758 captures of shipments along the Atlantic seaboard became frequent.62 The continual presence of English cruisers along the coasts made it foolhardy to send French timber carriers out of port without escort. In July 1758, 23 ships awaited convoy at the mouth of the Loire, and five months later 3 frigates were dispatched to escort 20 ships leaving Indret and Redon for Brest.63 But such convoys were not easily gathered, still less easily brought safely to their destination. The shortage of seamen, stemming from heavy demands by the fleet on the maritime population, at times made the manning of transports and cruiser escorts impossible. Writing to the minister, the intendant at Rochefort declared that "the small number of gabares, the shortage of sailors, and the absence of escorts constitute an invincible obstacle to the transport of timber and masts."64 The lack of French sailors and shipping was relieved, at least in part, by the use of neutral shipping. But the experience of the French with neutrals, particularly with the Dutch, was that they profiteered in the coastal traffic, and were none too responsible. The intendant Hocquart despaired of their usefulness. Dutch captains, he said, not only exact excessive prices for freight but "retard the departure of convoys."65 During the war, the Dutch and other neutrals became more and more reluctant to carry timber at any price, even when the French could provide naval escort, because the English did not refrain from seizing neutral ships whenever possible. 61 Ibid., fols. 101-2. Admiral Hawke's fleet caused difficulties in July 1756. In July and August of 1757 another British squadron caused Neapolitan ships to disembark timber cargoes in the Antibes, and six Genoese vessels sought refuge at Genoa. Italian contractors were ordered to suspend shipments. 62 The intendant at Brest wrote in July 1758 that "there have been many losses" of ships engaged in timber shipment. D3 1 (Marine), letter from Hocquart to minister, inserted in this volume. In August, 3 Neapolitan ships loaded with timber fell to an English corsair and were conveyed to Leghorn for sale. D3 1 (Marine) fols. 277-8, 305. 63D3 1 (Marine) Hocquart's letter, pp. 7-8; and fols. 199, 246. Q4: Ibid., fols. 245-6. "I find," said the intendant, "that I am without power to transport to Rochefort either the timber stored at Bordeaux and Bayonne or that at the He d'Indret and Le Havre." On the shortage of seamen, fol. 199. 65D3 1 (Marine) Hocquart to minister, 17 July 1758.

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The English blockade was never complete; until 1759 stealth and daring on the part of the French brought numerous timber cargoes to the dockyards, but such supplies were far from meeting wartime needs. At Brest the timber shortage brought construction to a halt in 1758,66 and while Brest and other dockyards starved for timber, all the storage space in the river entrepôts became filled. At Bordeaux, Indret, Le Havre, and Rouen timber piled up on the wharves.67 In February 1759, the navy halted exploitations in domestic forests and suspended shipments.68 Even convoy protection was then of little use, because the English, anxious and incensed over the "secret" project for the invasion of England, stationed powerful squadrons in waters adjacent to the ports from which egress might be expected. British ships-of-the-line cruised before Dunkerque, Le Havre, Brest, Redon, and near the entrance to the Loire. In the Mediterranean, the fleets of Boscawen and Broderick stood guard. These squadrons not only nipped invasion in the bud, but completely severed French lines of sea communication and supply. Timber shipments altogether ceased. Nor was that all. Two disastrous naval actions off Lagos and Quiberon in 1759 crushed the fighting fleet and strewed the remnants from Portugal to Brittany. The English were left free to interrupt supply lines when and where they would. Not merely the capacity, but the very will to resist the enemy, and to reconstruct the fleet appears to have been lost until the advent of Choiseul in 1761. The Duc de Choiseul, bent on revenge and determined to revive French sea power, embarked on naval renaissance even before the Seven Years' War was brought to a close. But his programme en^Ibid.j fol. 259. On naval actions off French coasts in 1758: Etat sommaire, 177-9. «?D3 1 (Marine) fols. 379, 382-3; D3 16 (Marine) "De fournitures de Munitions et Marchandises" (1760). On 1 February 1762, 151,467 cubic feet (40 to 50 shiploads) of timber were awaiting shipment from Rouen alone: B3 553 (Marine) fols. 54-6. On the immense quantities of timber which rotted at Indret and other ports during the war and the problems incident to the disposal of that timber: B3 566 (Marine) fols. 109, 137; B3 563 (Marine) fol. 217; F12 1665 (Arch Nat) on purchases of such timber by Marseille and other ports. 68 "I have ordered that the cutting and shipment of timber be suspended," wrote the minister, "until the flûtes and gabares under construction at Le Havre and Bayonne can be employed." D3 1 (Marine) fol. 383. Although the deployment of British blockading forces appears to have been tactically defective, the blockade was none the less effective in severing supply lines. Vide Ronarc'h, 49.

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countered a great initial obstacle in the shortage of timber at the dockyards and the near impossibility of replenishing supplies over the coastal shipping routes. Plans were drawn to repair and rebuild existing ships and to construct new frigates and ships-of-the-line. But at the dockyards, which were nearly isolated from sources of supply, there was very little matériel left. The port of Brest was "destitute of timber."69 Large quantities were marooned near Rouen, and an immense amount was available at Nantes, "but it cannot be shipped to Brest. . . . the sea would naturally be the shortest and least expensive route if enemy ships, which infest our coasts, did not interrupt the route."70 It was proposed, as an expedient, that small fishing craft and other shallow-draught vessels be used for the dangerous ocean passage from Nantes along the southern coast of Brittany westward from Lorient. It was thought that such vessels could hug the coast beyond reach of privateers and cruisers.71 Signal stations established at different points along the coast were to warn of any foreign sail, and escorts were to protect the operations.72 But fishing vessels, as one commentator pointed out, could only carry very small cargoes, and they were quite impracticable for the freighting of great timbers. The whole scheme was finally dropped after the Duc d'Aiguillon "made known the uselessness of these precautions" and the "impossibility of executing such a project."73 An alternative plan was devised to avoid the dangers of the southwest Brittany coast. This scheme called for timber ships to leave the Loire and hug the coast, passing northwest on the landward side of Belle-He to the Bay of Quiberon, and discharge their cargoes at Auray. From there the timber was to be sent overland for 27 leagues to reach the dockyard of Brest from the landward side. To protect the 50 miles of ocean passage involved, 6 small gunboats (chaloupes) were to take up station between the Loire and Quiberon.74 Aside from the inability of gunboats to deal with a sizable corsair or cruiser, the objection to this plan centred on the difficulty and cost of overland transportation. It was estimated that the cost would amount to 2 livres the cubic foot for overland transit alone. More serious than mere cost was the shortage of vehicles for the 69G. 122 (Marine) fol. 160. lilbid Klbid

™Ibid.

I2lbid. 74

G. 122 (Marine) fols. 160-1.

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carriage of the timber. Only 400 vehicles could be procured in southern Brittany; each could carry "only 30 cubic feet and make but 3 round trips a month."75 The 400 available conveyances could transport only 36 thousand cubic feet a month. At that rate, it would require at least 3 months to accumulate enough timber to construct a single first-rate, and even that quantity would not suffice unless the timber was assorted carefully to meet construction needs.76 Moreover, the maximum number of available vehicles could not be kept in good repair, and local inhabitants, deprived of their animals and conveyances, would "raise complaints on every side."77 The début of Spain as a French ally in early 1762 helped to solve the problem. The English could scarcely guard the coasts of France and those of Spain as well. Havana, Cuba, Manila, and the transPacific galleon were far more attractive prey for English men-ofwar than the remnants of a beaten battle fleet and the timber ships that scurried warily from port to port along French coasts. The British still harassed the timber ships, but the trickle of timber moving to Rochefort and Brest became a fairly steady stream. A contract was signed with a Sieur Hariaque in April 1762 for shipments from Rouen to Brest at 24 sous the cubic foot, with a surcharge for insurance of 2 to 10 per cent.78 In the last two years of war there was enough timber at the yards for no less than 12 new ships-of-the-line to go down the ways.79 The supply problems of the Seven Years' War followed the pat™lbid. 76 Unless all the multiple varieties and sizes of timber were delivered to the yard, construction could not proceed. Bottlenecks caused by badly assorted timber, particularly at Rochefort, constituted a serious problem which grew with the depletion of domestic woodlands. On bad assortments: B3 769 (Marine) fol. 179; fil 70 (Marine) fols. 155, 159; D3 8 (Marine) fol. 217. ?7G. 122 (Marine) fol. 161. 78 /6¿¿/., fol. 160. Under this contract the cost of shipment was double or triple the charge for peacetime shipments. B3 561 (Marine) fols. 221, 316. The amount of timber then stored at Rouen was "small by comparison to enormous stores at the He d'Indret and other timber yards." 79 Some idea of the intensity of naval activity during the later war years, dependent in large measure on the availability of timber, is apparent from the number of new ships-of-the-line that were launched: 1756, 5; 1757, 5; 1758, 3; 1759, 1; 1760, 1; 1761, none; 1762, 3; 1763, 9. These figures do not take account of ships built but lost by capture or other causes during the years 1756-70. Lacour-Gayet, 542-3.

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tern of earlier difficulties in the "succession wars'' of 1701-13 and 1744-8. In each struggle the initial strength and endurance of the French fleet was impaired by timber shortage at the ports, a shortage which rendered wartime construction difficult, and at times impossible. Hence in each of three maritime contests, the dearth of timber retarded or prevented recovery from battle and operational damage, and played a large role in defeat. But timber also played a role in the "victory" of 1778-83. That last of Bourbon wars with England in the old régime found the French with a fleet in good repair and with some timber stockpiled at the ports. The prestige of England, hated and envied "mistress of the seas," was damaged early in the struggle by a blundering naval action off Ushant, and her situation became more difficult when the Dutch and Spanish were finally brought into action on the side of France. The coalition powers, though unco-ordinated in their war efforts, enjoyed at least a nominal superiority in numbers of ships. During much of the war Britain's naval operations were defensive in conception; her forces were dispersed. Rebellious Americans embarrassed the English and made a notable contribution to the naval strength of France by drawing British fleets and corsairs out of European waters to those of North America; the immensity of the Atlantic theatre of naval operations, coupled with the strength of Britain's numerous enemies, reduced the vigilance of her fleet along the coasts of France, and left the coastal timber traffic free from interruption by blockading squadrons and highseas fleets far more often than had been the case in the Seven Years' War. But the French faced serious difficulties nevertheless. As always, the body of the English island lay right athwart the lines of supply from Baltic ports to France, and French dockyards were hardpressed for masts and spars. Furthermore, the movement of timber ships from the ports nearest England, and particularly from the mouth of the Seine westward around Normandy to Brest, was almost entirely halted; timber piled up in enormous quantities at Le Havre and Rouen, and along the Atlantic seaboard the dockyards felt the pinch severely.80 Though shipments of masts and timber coming direct from the north through the North Sea, or from the mouth of the Seine, were 80 As early as November 1779 more than 300 thousand cubic feet of timber was piled up at these two entrepôts. B1 92 (Marine) fols. 137-9.

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scarce, such vital supplies did arrive by other routes. Rochefort was supplied with Pyrenees masts shipped on French and neutral ships from Bayonne.81 Following a widely circuitous route, Baltic masts reached Brest via the Loire and Paimbceuf.82 When French squadrons returned from campaigns in the Caribbean or off the coasts of British North America, masts and timber alike were available to repair and recondition battered ships, and there were new shipsof-the-line just off the ways to replace losses. The sustained activity, and the successes of the French in the struggle were in no small measure due to the frequency with which coastal shipments of masts and timber arrived safely at the construction yards.83 During war with England, French coastal sea lanes became veritable battlefields over which timber and masts were brought with difficulty if at all. Exposed as they were, those sea lanes made it possible for Britain, when she controlled those seas, to strike heavy blows at French naval strength even though French ships lay securely out of reach behind coastal guns. Dockyards could be starved for timber and the forces based upon them enfeebled, while shipbuilding timber gathered out of reach on the wharves of river entrepôts not many miles up the coast. When the French did not gain control of coastal shipping lanes by offensive action with their fleet, or did not divert the English from French coasts by distant operations, they were forced to face the fact that in a long war, naval actions carried greater risk for them than for their enemy in terms of damage difficult to mend and losses unlikely to be replaced. Without open coastal communications between forest and dockyard, each successive year of maritime struggle saw the French fleet degenerate before the increasing numbers of the enemy. «IBS 673 (Marine) fol. 96; IE 213 (Rochefort) fols. 71 seq.; IE 215 (Rochefort) fols. 20, 24, 41, 88; IE 218 (Rochefort) fols. 35-6, 104, and passim; IE 225 (Rochefort) fol. 2. 82 See chapter ix, 182-3. 83 5 B 23 (Marine) "Marine de France, 1783" gives the following figures on wartime construction of capital ships of the first four ranks (64-110 guns): 1778—5 1781—6 1779_6 1782—4 1780—6 A different accounting is given in E. 205 (Marine) "Etat qui présente le nombre des Vaisseaux construits dans les différents ports de 1779 à 1783": 1779_4 1781—6 1780—5 1782—14 In addition, 11 old ships were rebuilt. The figure for 1782 includes 6 near completion. A significant comparison can be made between these figures and those for the Seven Years' War: see note 79 above.

CHAPTER FIVE

Forest Depletion

FRENCH FORESTS deteriorated in quality and were reduced in extent during the eighteenth century, but not until the second half of the century did the resulting shortage of timber supplies become serious and affect the French economy as a whole. Even in the sixteenth century, however, there were cries of alarm that wood was becoming dear, that wood was rare, and that soon there would be none at all. Alarms were raised in Franche-Comté as early as 1588 and 1606, long before the French conquest, and with increasing frequency thereafter.1 The makers and merchants of wine in and near Bordeaux often complained of the lack of domestic barrels and staves;2 irate villagers complained that forges and foundries ate up the forests and left no fuel even for local bakers' ovens;3 naval officials pointed to the rising prices of timber and masts and to the retreat of the forests away from the rivers and the sea as a menace to the strength of the fleet.4 Buffon, the philosopherscientist, remarked in 1739 that there was scarcely enough wood for indispensable needs although it had formerly been common and easy to buy; "we are menaced," he said, "by absolute want."5 Yet the day was still many years distant when domestic forests would be unable to supply most of the navy's needs. Nearly thirty years after Buffon penned his predictions the navy cut well over a million cubic feet (20 thousand English loads) of choice timber in domestic forests in a single season.6 During each of the years from 2 iMonniot, 181. Malvezin, III, 148. *B3 583 (Marine) fols. 399-403; D* 3 (Marine) fols. 71-5. Bfiuffon, 140. «B3 580 (Marine) fol. 277 ff.; B* 74 (Marine) fols. 282-5.

3

Gille, 74.

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1770 to 1775 for which port inventories exist, the naval arsenals had on hand a million to two million cubic feet of domestic oak.7 The dockyards along the Atlantic seaboard did not import large quantities of foreign timber as a matter of necessity until after 1783, and even then a great part of their supplies came from domestic sources. Yet warnings, in the form of books, memoirs, and correspondence, were sometimes written by distinguished men and presented in dispassionate and convincing terms. In some instances the writers were wise counsellors on forest management seeking to arrest the reduction of the forests, with no evident personal interest to serve. Many of their books and manuscripts purport to reveal the wide extent of deforestation and the immediate menace of short supply. One is tempted to regard them as proofs of widespread scarcity at an early date, but it is only as warnings, albeit prophetic warnings, based on awareness of local scarcity, that they can be relied upon. The localized and uneven reduction of forests, painfully apparent in some areas but non-existent in others, led local observers to exaggerate the extent and immediacy of the threat of deforestation, and produced noisy alarms with false overtones. But though the extent of reduction in forest reserves was long exaggerated, the process of depletion steadily advanced and posed long-range problems which the state recognized and sought to forestall. The real significance of the alarms probably lies in the fact that " 'all forest legislation of the ancien régime was founded on the fear of a scarcity of wood.' "8 Like its many statutory predecessors, the forest Ordonnance of 1669 failed to banish such fears. The authors of the code, as we have seen, erred in believing that the law would leave no excuse for mismanagement.9 In practice, it was discovered, the Ordonnance could be immediately applied in only part of the realm, and even where it was enforced, it was "far from perfection."10 There ensued, therefore, a long campaign to devise more effective legislative meaTB1 81 (Marine) fol. 240. January inventories for the same period are in B5 8 (Marine) "Relevé des variations dans l'approvisionnement des ports" (1774). «Granger, 453. ^Ordonnance of 1669, Preface, in Isambert, XVIII, 219. 10D3 3 (Marine) fol. 182.

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sures for forest conservation. This campaign was waged continuously from 1669 to the end of the old régime, and involved hundreds of statutes, supplementary to the Ordonnance of 1669, intended to amend and give broader application to Colbert's basic code. We have described some of the measures taken, notably the arrêts of 1700 and 1748 designed to produce and protect trees suitable for the use of the navy. But conservation measures took several other forms. First, attempts were made to remedy certain sylvicultural deficiencies inherent in the code of 1669; at the same time, a series of enactments enlarged the area in which the measures could be enforced. A third group of laws enacted in the eighteenth century was intended to regulate industrial consumption and demand. Finally, scattered throughout the whole of this legislative procession were punitive measures condemning those of the king's subjects who persisted in disobeying royal decrees. The serious shortcomings of the Ordonnance in regard to the management of non-deciduous trees called forth the first of these series of laws. As originally framed, the code made no special provision for them,11 in spite of the fact that methods of management appropriate for oak and other slow-growing trees were unsuited and damaging to such types as the spruce and fir of the Pyrenees, Alsace, Auvergne, and Dauphiné. This was a serious defect from the point of view of the navy since fir was the only domestic tree that could be used for masts. To modify the law in the light of these needs, fragmentary legislation was issued shortly after 1669 dealing with certain localities in the Pyrenees, and in 1702 a general law was issued in the interests of Pyrenees fir.12 Elsewhere in France, regional forestry officers developed methods of management deemed suitable for the peculiar needs of individual provinces or forests, and practicable in the light of local habits of use. Throughout the Vosges of Lorraine, for example, the traditional system of even-age management was largely retained;13 in the Alsacian Vosges, however, forestry officers were more eclectic than their colleagues in Lorraine, and varied their methods in both royal and private forests to accord with local conditions.14 In the Jura after 1727, the "code HHuffel, Economie forestière, III, 158-9. Wbid., Ill, 159, 196 ff., 265. Arrêt du conseil, 12 March 1702, of which there are extracts in ibid., Ill, 265, and in Baudrillart, I, 153. "Huffel, Economie forestière. III. 196. i*Ibid., Ill, 197-9.

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15

Maclot'' was employed, and an imitation oí the Maclot methods obtained in Franche-Comté after 1730.16 Such local adaptations alleviated, but, as will be shown, did not eliminate the damaging effects of technical deficiencies in the law. The second series of measures was intended to initiate effective conservation in the many localities where the Ordonnance was not initially enforced. In many instances such reforms were undertaken only after extensive devastation had occurred. The great forest of Rochefort, near the naval dockyards, for example, was entirely excluded from the Ordonnance system of management until 1702. Naval officials at the dockyards made heavy exploitations without establishing any system of management designed to preserve its extent. Indeed, Michel Bégon, intendant of Rochefort,17 believed that the proximity of the forest to the arsenal was "one of the causes of the unhealthfulness of the city," an opinion shared by the minister Pontchartrain who authorized total extinction of the forest.18 In 1702, however, Bégon reversed his earlier opinions on urban health, and guards for the forest of Rochefort were brought in from the neighbouring maîtrise of Niort; and a year later a new maîtrise was organized to protect what remained of the erstwhile menace to health and extend the application of forest law in near-by Saintonge and Aunis.19 The Ordonnance was applied at an earlier date, 1679, in Hainaut, part of which had been acquired by France by the Treaty of Nimwegen in 1678, but the inhabitants, with the support of their clergy, solicited exemption,20 which was conceded in 1706 with permission "to manage and exploit their forests as they had before."21 This meant reversion to a much inferior system of man15 Fir forests under "Maclot" management were divided into an average of about 20 compartments, and each year a fixed number of trees more than 3 feet in circumference (rarely exceeding 3) were cut from each hectare of forest; a slightly heavier supplemental cutting was occasionally undertaken among trees 2 to 3 feet in circumference. Ibid., Ill, 201. wibid., Ill, 201-2; Monniot, 165. 17 Michel Bégon (1638-1710), French naval and colonial administrator, patron of art and science, after whom the plant genus Begonia is named. iSYiaud et Fleury, I, 165. 19 /¿nM, I, 166-7. The forest of Rochefort, however, had already "lost its importance" (p. 167). 20 Application of the law in 1679 was probably simply de jure, not de facto, since the local inhabitants did not object strongly until after the enforcement agencies had been established. B1 92 (Marine) fols. 157-8; Sainte-Gertrude, 21 166. Bi 92 (Marine) fol. 158.

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agement applied on a "voluntary" basis. Confusion and widespread devastation ensued, and the Ordonnance was reinvoked in 1724,22 only to be withdrawn again three years later at the behest of interested parties. Thereafter Hainaut forests were free "from all observation"; they were, it was said in 1779, "delivered to destruction; there is no obstacle to their devastation."23 Very little success attended the long-sustained efforts to make the code more effective in southwestern France. In the early reformations in the Pyrenees, Froidour had advised that the general assertion of strict royal control was impracticable. The populace in some localities had been allowed to continue their traditional, ruinous habits. But even in areas where Froidour and other Colbertist reformers sought to force acceptance at an early date, the stubborn opposition of the Pyreneans mocked their efforts. In Bigorre, for example, the law was without effect for nearly a century until its provisions were moderated in 1764; Roussillon and those parts of Cerdagne acquired by France in 1678 long remained exempt from regulation, but when the Ordonnance was applied in Roussillon in 1759, it had little effect in hindering abuse.24 Though the law was imposed at a relatively early date in the Comté de Foix and Basse Navarre, a long procession of enactments in successive years was necessary to "remind" the inhabitants of the southern mountains that they were not complying with the law, and to threaten dire penalties unless they did.25 The inhabitants of Beam escaped early enforcement, but when efforts were made to apply the prescriptions of royal forest law (1726), they simply refused to recognize them until forced to do so by police measures in 1741.26 In the Pyrenees, royal forest law long remained a "dead letter" in spite of efforts to make it effective. Similar opposition to the extension of the forest code was encountered in most other important forested areas of France. In the 22 By an arrêt du conseil, registered by the Parlement of Flanders, 7 July 1724. 23B1 92 (Marine) fols. 159-60. Cf. D3 6 (Marine) fol. 121; D3 8 (Marine) fol. 72, on the forest of Mormal in Hainaut. 24 Campagne, 64. 25Arrêts du conseil were issued in 1695, 1702, 1726, 1738, 1764, 1769, etc. Naval complaints regarding depredations are to be found in B3 119 (Marine) fols. 529-36, 549-92; B3 141 (Marine) fols. 366-8. 26 The maîtrise des eaux et forêts at Pau began to function in 1741. Coincy. 25, 57-8.

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forests of Franche-Comté, an excellent source of supply for naval timber that had been pillaged indiscriminately before the French conquest ( 1674), the Ordonnance was only partially applied ( 1692— 4 ), with indifferent success in the face of vigorous provincial resistance.27 Naval authorities at Toulon wrote discouraged reports about persistent depredations in near-by Provençal forests in the summer of 1687, eighteen years after the Ordonnance had been issued.28 From 1725 onwards, in the province of Languedoc, the états repeatedly warned that the forests, particularly communal forests, were being badly maintained and by 1784 the intendant of Toulouse was decrying terrible devastations.29 In Dauphiné, where serious efforts were made over a long period to impose rational methods of management, the year 1766 found the forests in a state of veritable ruin;30 there, woodlands which had intermittently furnished masts to the dockyard at Toulon for more than 80 years had been all but annihilated. By 1776 similar conditions existed in Alsace, Burgundy, and Champagne, upon which the navy was heavily dependent for the timber supply of Toulon. As these examples suggest, efforts to broaden the application of forest law made slow progress in many localities and remarkably little in others. Efforts were most successful in royal forests, where by the end of old régime management practices generally conformed to the prescriptions of the forest code. But even if, as one writer has declared, the Ordonnance was applied in one form or another nearly everywhere in France by the middle of the eighteenth century,31 the fact remains that the belatedness of application caused vast damage, and even after mid-century illegal practices were commonplace. In short, the problem of extending the effective application of forest law in the face of determined provincial resistance was one which the monarchy never fully solved, and naval officials ever, with reason, decried this failure as a major cause of depletion. 27Monniot, 164-72; Mazoyer, passim- Turc, 445-6. 28B3 54 (Marine) fols. 195-8 on the inspection of Provençal forests in 1687; IL 435 (Toulon) "Plaintes de Monsieur de Villebranche" (1739) and "Mémoire concernant les abus qu'il y a dans la conservation et la coupe de bois de Provence" (1750). 29Dutil, 216-17. 30 1L 435 (Toulon) dossier no 6 on thé "Réformation générale de la [sic] Bois de Dauphiné" and "Mémoire concernant les abus"; B1 71 (Marine) fol. 31 74; Barthélémy, 196-9. HufTel, Economie forestière, III, 165.

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More easily enforceable was a third type of legislation, intended to control industrial consumption in the interests of conservation. Forests not only provided the timber used in the construction of commercial buildings and shipping, and wood products of countless varieties for the manufacture of implements, machines, containers, and vehicles of every kind, but also the principal domestic and industrial fuels. Until the sixteenth century the state, in the interests of revenue, gave some encouragement to the proprietors of woodfuel industries to establish furnaces in or near royal forests and to satisfy their needs from them. But as depletion gradually increased and industry expanded its needs for fuel, antagonism developed between the royal administration and the industrial consumers. Urban centres were the earliest and most articulate opponents of the use of forests by industrial consumers, and the most vehement advocates of royal restrictions. Municipal administrators often denounced the forge- and furnace-owners in their hinterland, sometimes prevented the erection of new establishments, and anxiously sought the closure of established manufactories.32 Provincial parlements reinforced the restrictive measures of the towns, as in Burgundy, where manufactories were "strictly limited" in the seventeenth century.33 But by the opening of the eighteenth, complaints were widespread and the monarch was being called upon from many quarters to act.84 Naval memoirists were among those who complained of the inroads of industry and sought restrictive measures, but the navy was hardly in a position to complain with vehemence, since some of the most important industries in France were engaged in the production of metals for its use. Ironically, the metallurgical industries, on which the navy depended, made demands on the forests that were especially serious from a naval point of view. Iron foundries and forges used much hardwood fuel, including oak. A commentator, writing in 1788, observed that "for some years oak and other hardwood absolutely necessary for ships have been converted into char32

Nevers, for example, obtained royal legislation in 1560 requiring demolition of all forges within 3 leagues of the city. Nef, Coal Industry, I, 161. 33Gille, 73. 34 The Conseil de Commerce conducted a survey of forest depletion in 1701; extracts from the reports of intendants reflect widespread alarm over industrial consumption. A. M. de Boislisle, Correspondance, II, 80-1, 100-2.

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coal and are now so rare as to be beyond price.'" Whatever the type of wood they employed, such industries directly and indirectly reduced the resources available for naval use. Forge-owners sought, as did naval administrators, to minimize the cost of transportation from the forest to the site of their works, and, in following along the rivers and roads to find the requisite fuel, drew supplies from the very regions where the navy was wont to cut its timber trees. In cutting young trees, on which they largely depended for fuel, furnace- and forge-owners decreased the number that would attain sufficient size to be of use to the navy.36 Such rivalry could hardly be viewed with equanimity by the navy when fuel for a single forge might equal the consumption of a city like Chalons.37 But a host of other industries were also competing with the navy for forest products: mining enterprises; the manufactories of salt and glass; tanneries; producers of turpentine, and of staves for barrels; the building industries in cities and towns; and of course the commercial shipbuilders. The glass works of Languedoc, for example, caused "immense devastations in forests proper for the navy,38 and the salt works and forges of Franche-Comté were described as "the principal cause of wood scarcity" in that province,39 while the container industry did much to denude the coastal area near Bordeaux.40 Mines used oak timber to support the shafts and galleries of underground works; indeed, the use of oak timber as pit props became mandatory under the terms of an arrêt du conseil of 14 July 1744.41 The needs of commercial shipbuilders, of course, conflicted directly with those of the navy and, as we have seen, from the seventeenth century onward the navy sought to restrict commercial shipyards to the employment of domestic resources which were useless to the navy.42 In general, like other users of forest SBGille, 68. 36 Fuel for forges often came from trees 18 to 30 years of age. Ibid., 67. wibid., 69. 38B3 418 (Marine) fols. 221-5, 231, 236-7. s^Monniot, 182. 40D3 3 (Marine) fol. 16; Malvézin, III, 147-8; A. M. de Boislisle, Corre41 spondance, I, 506. Rouff, 31, 86. 42 In consequence of the growth of the navy's pre-emptive rights and the process of depletion, an increasingly large portion of commercial needs was satisfied by imports. Commercial shipbuilders, however, being less exacting than the naval builders in their choice of materials, did employ inferior timber, and substitute other wood for oak. For smaller merchant craft and lesser works, trees "abandoned" by the navy could be made to serve. See chapter ix.

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resources, the navy sought to obtain legislation restricting the inroads of its competitors. The state, however, was torn between the recognized need for conservation, and the desire to encourage industrial growth. "It was no accident that the inquest . . . in 1701 into the destruction of the forests was followed, in 1709, by a demand for information concerning the condition of the coal mines."43 Comparatively little coal was then being produced in France,44 a fact which made it more difficult to regulate the industrial consumption of wood for fuel. Royal regulatory legislation of a general character was not imposed on industry until 1723. But in the interests of forest conservation, an arrêt in that year forbade "the establishment of any new furnaces, martinets, forges or glass works," or the enlargement of existing establishments, without letters patent.45 Thereafter, patents were not often issued except in cases where the fuel was to be derived from sources that were distant from cities and navigable streams and were unlikely to be tapped by other users.46 Subsequent legislation, in the years 1725-40, forced the removal of Languedoc's glass industry into mountainous areas where its fuel would have to come from forests otherwise little used; this legislation "practically destroyed the industry" in that province.47 After the middle of the century, however, the state generally chose less drastic, more constructive lines of policy in restricting industrial consumption, as exemplified by the arrêt du conseil of 1744 giving strong encouragement to the coal industry to provide fuel that could be substituted for wood.48 Indeed, from then on, the state supported industrial development and showed less and less concern over the cost of that support in terms of forest resources. The fourth type of legislation, punitive in intent, dealt with various classes of offenders against royal decrees. Multiple and single instances of abuse were alike condemned to punishment by «Nef, Coal Industry, I, 162. 44 Production has been estimated at 50 thousand or 75 thousand tons annually at the end of the seventeenth century. Ibid., I, 124-6. 45Arrêt du conseil, 9 August 1723. Vide Brunei, 344 seq.; Scoville, Capitalism, 60. 46Scoville, Capitalism, 60-3; Brunet, 244-5. 47 Scoville, Capitalism, 60. However, in 1743 there were still complaints that devastations were being caused by the glass industry of Languedoc. B3 418 (Marine) fols. 221-5. 48 Rouff, chap, iv ; See, Histoire économique, I, 360-1.

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royal decrees. The French clergy, "most vigorous" in its opposition to forest law, and negligent in its application, was condemned in 1693 to pay penalties of 4,600 thousand livres for its non-compliance with forest decrees.49 That the clergy still did not comply with the letter of the law is evident from many arrêts in the eighteenth century, such as that of 1754 "renewing very express prohibitions" that many ecclesiastics had ignored.50 Other landowners, as we have seen, were certainly no less recalcitrant. Literally thousands of cases were tried in provincial courts; the archives of the administration of waters and forests abounds in records of penalties imposed.51 During the reformation of the forests in the maîtrise d'Arqués in the years 1732-4, fifty-one persons were tried and condemned to pay fines totalling 100 thousand livres, of which the share of the Marquis de la Londe alone was 63 thousand.52 In 1691 an order was issued for the seizure of 275 oak that Madame la Duchesse de Nemours had cut illegally;53 two years later, for the same reason, 75 oak were confiscated from another culprit and a fine was ordered.54 Thousands of punitive decrees issued during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries testify to a long-sustained effort to make the various types of forest law effective. Perhaps the best commentary on the effectiveness of this long legislative campaign is the condition of French forests at the end of the ancien régime. Conditions naturally varied from province to province, but alarms based on evidence of local shortage were then being raised in extraordinary number.55 Forges in many localities had been forced to reduce production or close for lack of fuel.56 Pessimistic reports from most intendants pointed to the grave and worsening shortage of wood.57 By 1788 an intendant could remark that in the region under his jurisdiction, "forges and mines . . . have employed all the timber trees and there remain no resources for the construction of ships."58 The navy, whose resources had 49

Sainte-Gertrude, 164-5. ™ Arrêt du conseil, 23 July 1754, in Baudrillart, I, 371-2. 51 There are scores of such documents in AD IV (Arch Nat) vols. 8-9. 52La Serre, 113. 53Arrêt du conseil, 19 June 1691, in Baudrillart, I, 117. 54 Arrêt du conseil, 24 February 1693, in Baudrillart, I, 121. «BGille, 72 seq.; See, "Les Forêts," 362; Malvézin, III, 145-6. ««Gille, 70-6; See, "Les Forêts," 16-18. "Gille, 70-6; Malvézin, III, 145-6. 58Sée, "Les Forets," 362.

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been better protected by law than those of others during the previous century, had been forced by 1783, as will be shown later, to depend on foreign supplies. Memoirists asserted that wood had "become very rare in France," that forests were "approaching total destruction," and that France was menaced by "total want of wood;"59 and in the 1780's the evidence giving rise to such ominous, though exaggerated, opinions was more ample than ever before. Depletion had steadily advanced during the century, and by 1789 there was considerable justification for describing the situation as "extremely grave."60 Royal measures, intended to forestall depletion by controlling production and consumption, had failed. Two of the government agencies, the ministry of finance and the navy, had taken an active interest in conservation, since they both stood to benefit from doing so. Nevertheless, both agencies—the navy to a lesser extent than the ministry of finance—had a part in bringing about the depletion that was so ominously evident by 1789, and each criticized the other bitterly for contributing to the destruction of forest resources. The navy, as the principal government agency interested in the purchase of forest products, assumed a more or less self-appointed role in the inspection and policing of woodlands. The term "selfappointed" applies since the management of forests was, under royal ordinance, the exclusive (and jealously guarded) preserve of the contrôleur général des finances and the masters of waters and forests under him.61 The navy had no legal jurisdiction over, or right to interfere in, forest management. But inspections were often made by naval officials to assess the value of resources in the provinces from which timber was derived, and major exploitations were usually preceded by such inspections. Naval commissaires were stationed in the provinces where lumbering operations took place, and as a matter of routine, toured and inspected forests of their district, and were quick to report infringements of the law to the minister of the navy, or to the provincial representatives of the ministry of finance, usually grueries or maîtres des eaux et forêts, with whom their liaison was contentious but close. These provincial commissaires assisted and supervised exploitations by naval contractors and exercised considerable authority over woodland 5»D3 3 (Marine) fol. 173; D» 15 (Marine) fol. 61 seq. ^Gille, 76. ^Etat sommaire, 596 (note).

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proprietors; their multiple activities gave the navy wide surveillance over the forest resources of the realm, supplementing that of the maîtres and helping to check illegal cuts. Understandably, the surveillance thus exercised by the navy was resented in the ministry of finance; unsolicited reports, especially those from the navy concerning the misdemeanours and inefficiency, already notorious, of forest officers, were unwelcome in the extreme to the officials ultimately responsible for such abuses. The navy's conservation activity was, admittedly, self-interested. Forest enactments, such as the arrêts of 1700 and 1748, were conceived, framed, and executed in the narrow interests of the naval service; any benefits rendered by them to the general welfare of the forests was a by-product. Such laws did not, nor were they intended to protect forests other than those useful to the navy. They did not apply to wooded tracts lying more than 15 leagues from navigable waterways, or even to forests within those limits which could not readily be exploited for the navy. Furthermore, as we have seen, the navy's principal interest was in oak timber, in the fir of the Pyrenees and of such provinces as Auvergne and Dauphiné, and particularly in those specially chosen specimens of oak and fir possessing, or (after the arrêt of 1748) promising to possess, the qualities it required. Trees that did not meet these exacting specifications were "abandoned" to proprietors and merchants. But naval administrators must also be credited with an interest in the conservation of other species of trees, the depletion of which, on a large scale, would cause other buyers to increase their demands for oak and fir and ultimately leave the navy short. Hence, the administrators secured the services of outstanding scientists and directed inquiries on matters of forest management, timber preservation, and rot in ships. Buffon, at the behest of the minister, then Maurepas, undertook studies of nursery methods and the reproduction of trees, and sought to determine by experiment the most effective methods of preserving timber used for maritime purposes.62 Duhamel du Monceau, the natural scientist, wrote extensively on forest management and exploitation, and while serving as Inspector General of the Navy wrote treatises on shipbuilding C2 ln 1739 Buffon remarked: "Animated by the orders of M. le Comte de Maurepas, I have conducted many experiments on this subject during the past 7 or 8 years." Buffon, 141. He was probably not entirely disinterested, however, being the owner of at least 2,700 acres of forest himself. Biais, 256.

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and timber trees.63 The Académie de la Marine concerned itself with forestry problems, and scores of memoranda and letters scattered through the archives of the navy bear witness to the active interest of the service in the problem of depletion.64 However, the navy's exploitations offset in considerable measure the beneficial effects of its efforts at conservation. It was directly responsible for much depletion in forests lying near the coasts, along the rivers, in the Pyrenees, and indeed in the many parts of the realm reached by the navy axe. The exploitations of the navy, one writer remarked, "give rise to great abuse," notably "the negligence and bad faith of the entrepreneurs."65 Its contractors, careless in their methods, sometimes caused great damage to forested tracts, and were bitterly denounced time and again by irate forestry officers. Their misdeeds were probably at their worst in the Pyrenees, where naval exploitations were a major factor in the destruction of vast reserves of resinous trees.66 Huffel observes that naval exploitations there "were downright devastating for all the forests they reached. All usable fir was taken out, without any regard for the condition in which the forest was left. . . . there remained only worthless trees . . . broken and mutilated by the exploitation."67 Given such methods, it is understandable that "there was continual friction in the Pyrenees under the old régime between the naval service . . . and the service of waters and forests."68 Over a period of many decades the carelessness and greed of naval contractors, coupled with the desire of the navy to pay the lowest possible prices for timber, had the effect of discouraging forest proprietors and of encouraging the conversion of woodland to agricultural use. In short, the navy itself was responsible for taking a heavy toll from the oak and fir resources of the realm and certainly helped to hasten the general process of depletion. 63 Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau (1700-82) wrote extensively on forestry and related problems, and used part of his enormous fortune to publish fine editions of his own works: Du transport, de la conservation et de la force de bois (1767); De l'exploitation des bois (1764), 2 vols.; Elément de l'architecture navale (1758). 64 For example, four MSS on the subject in thé single volume D3 15 (Marine) fols. 61-4, 112-13, 114, 157. esRoy, 27. 66 Excellent plates in Leroy's treatise on naval exploitations in the Pyrenees illustrate the enormous extent of the damage done during exploitations. 67 Huffel, "Les Méthodes d'aménagement," 121. 68 Coincy, 62 (note).

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However, if considered in relation to the multitude of other causes of depletion, and particularly the role of the ministry of finance in that process, the navy's responsibility was comparatively insignificant. It had justice on its side in placing the principal blame on the shoulders of the contrôleurs généraux des finances, those unenviable bureaucrats in whose weighty portfolio responsibility for the forests lay. Virtually the entire complex of internal administration in France lay in the hands of the contrôleurs, and the burden in the eighteenth century would probably have overtaxed even the energies of a Colbert. Finance was at once their major preoccupation and a major obstacle to the effective discharge of their other responsibilities, one of the least of which was forest administration. They were, of course, fully alive to the progress of depletion, but were, for economic reasons among others, unable to do much more than continue to legislate and to punish abuse in the customary manner. Natural scientists and many local forestry officers suggested reforms calculated to help arrest depletion.69 Their suggestions were reinforced by the continual criticism from forest proprietors and the navy. Under this pressure the ministers of finance took a number of drastic steps before the middle of the eighteenth century, notably in réformations générales in individual provinces, to crush abuses, to enforce the established system of management, and to institute reforms in detail. Such efforts were marked by some success. But they were costly,70 and the financial problems with which the contrôleurs were obliged to deal became more acute later in the century. Hence most of these réformations were undertaken before 1740; for financial reasons, few were initiated after the middle of the century, though depletion and the need for reform were then most acute. Needed reforms in forest management were not, and in some instances, could not be made by the contrôleurs généraux. Some defects inherent in the Ordonnance, as has been shown, were remedied; others persisted. In 1721 the naturalist Reaumur pointed to serious imperfections in the code; the Ordonnance of 1669, he warned, was "a poor resource for reforesting the realm with full69 3 D 15 (Marine) fol. 115; Reaumur, 286 seq.; Duhamel du Monceau, De l'exploitation des bois, I, 136 and passim; Turc, 455. 70 The ré formation générale in Franche-Comté in 1726-40, for example, "cost dearly and finished in haste." Turc, 455.

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grown trees." Many of his learned contemporaries shared that view. Methods of management were exceedingly varied within the framework of the basic law, but that law failed on technical grounds to provide adequate means of replenishing woodlands after cuts. The cuts allowed by the Ordonnance and most of its amendments were too nearly total; too few trees were reserved for seeding purposes. Particularly was this the case when the law was applied in deciduous forests on mountainous or hilly terrain. There, natural obstacles to reproduction were greatest and a large reserve was required for replenishment after cuts. By allowing the exploitation of too many of the older trees, royal regulations actually encouraged invasions of fast-growing bois blanc, like birch, that tended to choke out slow-growing hardwood seedlings, and sprouts from the stumps, thus bringing on qualitative deterioration of the growing stock.72 Valuable timber stands were thus replaced by trees that were of no use to the navy. Nor did the law and its amending statutes, until well on in the eighteenth century, provide for intermediary cuts73 spaced between primary fellings to clear out the brush and inferior "whitewood" that gradually took possession of wooded land in many regions.74 The law thus failed, not only to provide for satisfactory reproduction, but also to protect seedlings and young trees when they were produced. With each of these deficiencies taking its toll in turn, the futaie (lofty trees) on which the navy depended for timber were "becoming very rare," as Reaumur observed in 1721, adding that futaie will certainly "continue to diminish if no recourse is had to new expedients for the conservation of coppice."75 Some corrective measures were taken in the eighteenth century, as when new nurseries were established and seedlings were set out in many royal forests.76 Yet during much of the period from 1660 to TiReaumur, 286. ? 2 Huffel, Economie forestière, III, 180-1, 184-5. 73 In the opinion of Huffel, the failure of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century statutes to provide for intermediary cuts appeared to derive from the fear of abuses which had, in earlier years, commonly accompanied such operations. Ibid., Ill, 180. 74 Regenerative cutting was practised in the eighteenth century, but the bois blanc spread widely nevertheless. Ibid., Ill, 180. ?5Reaumur, 285-6. 76pio 256 (Arch Nat) "Mémoire sur l'état des pépinières" (1756). Henri See remarks that ill success in seedings and plantings " 'discouraged those [private forest owners] who were able to undertake them.' " "Les Forêts," 369. In 1789 there were 11 tree nurseries in Auvergne (one dating from 1666), for which maintenance costs aggregated 11.950 livres in 1788. Vazeilles, 269-70. On Bourgogne, see Biais, 257.

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1789 the defective management practices that the law encouraged and actually prescribed allowed depletion and deterioration to take place even where the law was enforced. But since the forest code often was not enforced, it was in the administration of this system of management that the most damaging shortcomings made themselves felt. Administrative difficulties were multiplied by the complexity and unpopularity of the laws. Royal forest regulations mirrored the labyrinth of feudal usages that they proscribed in whole or part; in detail they reflected the ingrained Colbertist propensity to over-regulate. The bureaucratic formalities they prescribed seemed unnecessary; necessary or not, they proved obnoxious to many forest proprietors, and were often ignored. Forest law infringed on the customs and habits of owners, and the resulting displeasure led to disobedience on a thousand pretexts. Some parlements refused to register the Ordonnance until forced to do so by lettres de jussion.11 The Etats de Beam sought for 20 years to have the maîtrise at Pau suppressed, and to this end they bribed the Maréchal de Noailles with 6,000 livres and 200 bottles of wine, and in 1756 they plied the First Clerk of the Navy Department with 12 hams and 2 barrels of tasty preserved goose-legs, but to no avail.78 The distasteful maîtrise remained. All over France provincial or local pretensions to autonomy reinforced feudal claims to untrammelled rights of forest use. The effectiveness of forest law seems to have tended to decrease as the physical distance from Versailles increased. The code was so little known or observed in the Pyrenees that when attempts were made in the early nineteenth century to invigorate the ordinances, an insurrection broke out, la guerre des demoiselles, with the object of resistance to the application of forest law.79 The application of the regulations was of course least effective in private and communal holdings, where the powers of the maîtres were most restricted and where their supervisory functions were least exercised. Royal forests were their primary responsibility; their duties with respect to all other forests were distinctly secondary. Conditions varied from maîtrise to maîtrise, of course, but the regulations to which private owners objected so strenuously were in fact far less rigid, precise, and thorough than those which applied to royal domains. It was expected that the owners of private forest ^Granger, 453.

78Coincy, 25, 57-8.

^Campagne, 65.

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would, as the Ordonnance specifically authorized,80 establish their own system of policing to prevent depredations by their neighbours, especially the peasantry. The proprietor himself was subject to surveillance by the maître and other responsible officers who were permitted, by law, to inspect private forests at will with full authority to repress abuses.81 But in practice visits of inspection were infrequently made. Duties relating to the administration of royal forests tended to preoccupy, even to demobilize, the grand-maître, maître, and most of their subordinates. Inspectoral tours of scattered parcels of forest involved severe discomforts in travel, and unaccustomed physical labour during the actual inspection of trees. We might even surmise that such duties did not often attract most maîtres from the comforts of the provincial town. If we are to believe the memoirists of the time, it was an uncommon rentier who frequently burdened himself with the chore of inspecting private forests. "Generally," one writer remarked in 1776, "the functions of [forestry officers] . . . are confined to that which concerns the forests of the king and those woodlands in the hands of mainmortables" These were "the only forests overseen"; those belonging to towns and individuals were "never inspected."82 These observations overstated the case perhaps, yet the normal combination of easy-going venal officials and recalcitrant proprietors allowed many offences to go unpunished and even delayed the application of forest law entirely in many communal forests until the end of the eighteenth century.83 When the royal regulations were honoured on a more or less voluntary basis, as was the case in private holdings in many localities, a multitude of factors tended to minimize their effectiveness. One factor was the difficulty of obtaining dependable and competent forestry officers. The contrôleurs généraux were hard pressed by the necessity of acquiring funds and under this compulsion the offices of grand-maître, that Colbert had given gratuitously to his collaborators, were rendered venal and hereditary shortly after his death (1683), and in 1707 "the financial distress of the monarchy ^Ordonnance of 1669, title XXVI, art. 5, in Isambert, XVIII, 284. 8l/¿>tW., title XXIV, art. 12, and title XXVI, art. 2, in Isambert, XXVIII, 280, 284. 82D3 3 (Marine) fols. 182-3. 83 Monniot, 167.

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led to the creation of alternative [forestry] offices."84 The fact that these posts could be purchased created great mischief, for the buyer could only be removed by repurchase or a process of judicial condemnation, and there was an ample crop of incumbents who were incompetent or dishonest or both, and who should have been but could not easily be removed. "Charged with the conservation of forests, they contributed to their ruin by their incompetence, their negligence, and the abuses of which they were guilty."85 Letters patent ordering reformation of Auvergne forests in 1725 pointed to "the negligence of the officers of the maîtrises" as a major cause of devastation.86 No less guilty were the forestry officers of Dauphiné: "there is no province where the forests are in worse condition as a result of disobedience . . . and negligence by officers of the maîtrise"87 In Franche-Comté, the forests "sustained the gravest damages with the complicity of local officers."88 Naval officials at Toulon, interested in the ship-timber resources of Provence, were bitter critics of the Chamber of Waters and Forests at Aix: "Of all the causes which have occasioned and daily cause abuses prejudicial to the forests of Provence . . . the most important is ... that of having permitted the Parlement of Aix to buy the grand maîtrise."8^ The daily commission of offences, said the Treasurer of the Navy at Rochefort, is "the fault of officers of enforcement, who fail to execute [the regulations] exactly and rigidly in accord 84 Huffel, "Les Méthodes de l'aménagement," 80. Three- and four-year terms of office were also established in some provinces, but the incumbent often purchased the office he held when the system of sale was established. Forestry offices had been venal at least as early as the sixteenth century. Mousnier, 22. 85 Sée, "Les Forêts," 357. Cf. bitter criticisms of ranking forest officers in F1(> 403 (Arch Nat) "Observations sur la dégradation des forêts" (1778). 86 Rouganne, 16. Pierre Buffault, 523, emphasizes "above all, lack of surveillance and control" as a cause of depletion. 88 «^Barthélémy, 199. Mazoyer, 341. 89 IL 435 (Toulon) "Mémoire concernant les abus qu'il y a dans la conservation et la coupe de bois au Provence" (1750), and "Plaintes de Monsieur Villebranche" (1739). As the quotation implies, special dispensation must have been obtained by members of the Parlement of Aix, since the Ordonnance expressly forbade their holding or exercising any forestry office. Ordonnance of 1669, title II, art. 12, in Isambert, XVIII, 224-5. The possibilities for abuse in such a case are evident when one considers that the members of the Parlement were themselves, in 1759, the owners of "the greater part of the forest" in the province. D3 5 (Marine) fols. 9-10; G. 75 (Marine) Maurepas to the Parlement de Provence (summary), 15 September 1723.

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with the objects for which they were drawn."uo Such criticism, from the navy, should be tempered by emphasis on the fact that the eighteenth century saw many competent men occupy these high places in forest administration, men more devoted and capable than some of their early seventeenth-century predecessors. Yet there can be no doubt that many rascals among them left records of widespread corruption, maladministration, and neglect. Nor was administrative corruption confined to the higher ranks of officialdom; lower functionaries under the jurisdiction of the maîtregi had more reason than some of their superiors for indulging in illegal practices. Like their superiors, many men in the lower grades of the service purchased their offices, but unlike the maîtres they were strongly encouraged to indulge in lax and dishonest practices by the meagreness of their remuneration.92 The salaries of guards were very small, ranging from 80 to 120 livres per annum at a time when, as estimated by Henri See, their food alone cost 200 livres a year.93 The capitation, ranging up to 20 livres, had also to be paid from these salaries. The guards were held personally responsible for the trees under their care and were forbidden to engage in other employment;94 hence, the small percentage allowed them on fines collected from convicted offenders represented the only supplement to their salaries. "This abuse," one naval commentator remarked, "is the germ of all others . . . an invincible obstacle to the replenishment of forests."95 But to increase the salaries, which the contrôleurs were repeatedly urged to do, evidently did not appear consistent with economical administration. Under the circumstances, as one contemporary memoirist observed, the guard who was "honest and always loyal" was indeed "a citizen of rare and superior generosity to his state."96 Forestry officers closed their eyes to violations of the law, accepted bribes, and were known to be guilty of furtive cuts and sales of wood from the forests they were 9°D3 2 (Marine) fol. 134. Under each maître: maître particulier, lieutenant, procureur, garde-marteau, huissiers audienciers, greffiers, etc. 92 "One of the greatest obstacles to forest conservation," said one memoirist, "is the lack of funds to provide the salaries of officers and the emoluments of guards." D^ 14 (Marine) fol. 96. Cf. Mazoyer, 341-2. »8Sée, "Les Forêts," 14. ^Ordonnance of 1669, title II, art. 8, in Isambert, XVIII, 224; D3 15 (Marine) fols. 112-13. 95D3 15 (Marine) fol. 112. **Ibid., fol. 113. 91

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97

supposed to guard. The timber merchant who sought to acquire valuable hardwoods marked for naval reserve could scarcely have found these guards incorruptible. And when offenders were brought to trial, the forest guard might well be aligned on the defendant's side, whose interests he had, for a price, made his own. The venality of forest offices and the low salaries paid to guards underscored the fact that after Colbert's death royal forests were administered less as a public trust than as a source of royal revenue. To increase the income from the royal domains had, of course, been one of Colbert's aims, yet he had held in view the necessity for longterm conservation policies. His successors in the ministry of finance, who faced greater and continually increasing financial pressure, were led to compromise long-term policy by accepting expedients that would produce immediate funds; for them the quest for revenue became the dominant theme in forest management, and financial needs were met, not only by paying low salaries and selling offices, but by increasing the frequency and severity of cuts in royal forests, and by transferring royal forests to private hands. Although the principal motive for heavy cuts in the eighteenth century was the desire for larger revenue, several other factors were involved. The growing demand for forest products and the incidence of serious local shortages produced agitation for exploiting younger trees, sometimes on the allegation that shortage " 'was occasioned by the small amount of cutting in His Majesty's forests.' "98 Some forestry officers urged that seeding trees should be cut at a lower age because such trees " ' are like women who become sterile in old age.' "" Moreover, the invasion of birch and other £i whitewoods," which the defective system of management widely encouraged, tended to justify and bring about more rapid rotations of cuts. Nevertheless, this movement toward routine cuts of younger trees portended sheer disaster from the standpoint of the navy, since most oak timber for naval use came from trees over 100 years of age. But protests from the navy were hardly audible in the ministry of finance, so loud was the demand for the revenue that could be got from heavier cuts. A few instances among scores may be cited. The royal forest of Vierzon, where the age of exploitation ranged from wibid. Cf. See, "Les Forets," 14-16. 98 HufTel, Economie forestière, III, 184.

"Quoted in ibid., Ill, 182.

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4 by 150 to 200 years in Colbert's day, was almost entirely reduced, 100 1780, to coppice with an age of exploitation of 25 years. In the royal forest of Mormal, the age for cutting was 100 years during most of the eighteenth century, but was lowered to 35 years in 1779.101 Exploitations in the great forest of Haguenau were limited in 1674 to trees 200 years old, extended to include trees of 150 years in 1750, and trees of not more than 60 years in 1782, and royal revenue from this forest consequently increased from 28 thousand livres in 1720 to 37 thousand in 1750, reaching 200 thousand in!784, and standing at 226 thousand annually between 1785 and 1787.102 Financial considerations were well served by such methods of exploitation, but the long-term interests of the forests certainly were not. Writing in 1926, Huffel remarked that many French forests, "and not the least important, still feel today" the effects of these excessive cuts.103 The financial pressure which encouraged heavier cuts also led the contrôleurs généraux to transfer royal forest domains to private control. There were legal barriers to transfer in the case of some domains,104 but the question of legality became academic in 1691 when all cessions of royal domains that had been made since 1566 were recognized as permanent on condition that payment of 10 per cent of their value was made to the Grown.105 In that same year, illustrating the effect of this measure, a large forest was ceded "temporarily" to an engagiste and with the transfer went the right to clear those portions suitable for agricultural use.106 The next century saw a long series of such alienations. By no means all of them conferred rights to clear the land. Indeed, an arrêt of 1716 expressly forbade clearings by the engagiste.,107 However, many forests granted as apanage to princes of the blood were reduced from futaie to

lOO/fo-^ ins 183 (note). ^Ibid., Ill, 183 (note). 102/frid., in, 183, 185. 103/fcirf., HI, 185. 104 The Ordonnance of Moulins (1566) expressly forbade confusion of the patrimony of the prince with domains of the Crown; the Ordonnance of 1669 re-enacted earlier prohibitions concerning alienations; title XXVII, art. 1, in Isambert, XVIII, 284-5. 1Q5 Edit portant confirmation des aliénations du domaine faites depuis 1566, Fontainebleau, October 1691, in Isambert, XX, 141. !06A. M. de Boislisle, Correspondance, I, 265, 277. 107 Arrêt du conseil qui défend aux usufruitiers donataires et engagistes des forêts du Roi, d'y faire aucun défrichement, Paris, 4 July 1716, in Isambert, XXI, 120.

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coppice sous futaie, and further damage was done in some instances by the erection of glass works and other furnaces near the apanage with rights to exploit the coppice, and thus to increase the revenue of the apanagiste.108 In the last two decades of the ancien régime, the desperate aggravation of Bourbon financial difficulties occasioned a number of very substantial alienations which did include cutting rights. The years 1770-5, for example, saw the transfer of a royal forest of 17,200 acres to the king's brother for 1,585 thousand livres, a forest that was entirely cleared for conversion to the plough.109 In the same period the royal forest of Beaufort, in Anjou, was sold, a forest "populated by vigorous oak 40 to 50 feet in height . , . which, with a little care and time, would have produced superb plank and keel pieces in great number for the navy" ; Beaufort was entirely cleared by 1780.110 An estimated 833 thousand arpents were alienated to various categories of engagiste during the century before 1789,111 and in many of those alienations that were made out of a need for revenue, the favourable effects of royal conservation measures were seriously compromised, and the needs of the navy appear to have been quite forgotten. No less serious from the naval standpoint, as a departure from conservation policies, were the encouragements given by the state to the clearing of private woodlands after the middle of the eighteenth century. The spectre of famine, the influence of physiocratic ideas, and the example of English agronomists focused attention on the need for and desirability of larger agricultural production. In the 1750's the Bourbon government offered certain tax exemptions to proprietors willing to reclaim or clear their lands for agricultural use. This movement gained momentum quickly, and in 1761 an arrêt du conseil, issued under the auspices of Bertin, the contrôleur général, allowed the owners of reclaimed land 10 years' exemption from any increase in the taille, vingtième, and certain other levies. Later legislation, arrêts in 1766 and 1767, offered exemptions of even longer duration.112 These enactments were inlOSGranger, 454. K^Huffel, Histoire des forêts françaises, 140-1. HOD3 16 (Marine) Granville to Castries, 26 October 1786. m Huffel, Histoire des forêts françaises, 137-8. ii2pio 201 (Arch Nat) "Mémoire historique sur les défrichements." A large collection of legislation on the subject is contained in F10 (Arch Nat) vols. 325-6. See also See, La Vie économique, 93-100.

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tended, primarily, to bring swamp, wasteland, and pasture under cultivation. If they did not, as one writer held, conflict with the letter of the Ordonnance of 1669,113 they none the less did violate the spirit of it by encouraging proprietors of wooded and partially wooded land to clear the soil. These decrees offering tax exemptions aroused bitter protests from the navy, and created an enthusiastic stir among proprietors tainted by physiocratic ideas, embittered by dealings with local wood merchants or naval buyers, or simply irked by the meddling of the state in matters of forestry. Many proprietors welcomed an opportunity to dispose of their stands of trees in order to enjoy the larger immediate profits of agricultural enterprise, which the proferred tax exemptions greatly increased.114 The existence of such attitudes was made apparent to the navy during the Seven Years' War when the prohibition against the cutting of trees marked as naval reserve was temporarily relaxed, and extraordinarily heavy cuts resulted.115 If wide fluctuations in the price of grains discouraged the timid forest owner, the generally upward trend of agricultural prices was reassuring. The subdélégué of Sancoins had reason to remark, in 1783, that "the continual dearness of grains has excited cultivators to clear considerable forest."116 One embittered naval memoirist put it more bluntly : the forest proprietor's "hope and cupidity" were aroused, he said, by rises in the price of grains and feed; "exemption from taxation sustains his courage and enterprise."117 The clearing of land "became a veritable mode."118 One naval writer exaggerated in asserting that these encouragements to cuts were the "first cause of the destruction of forests."119 Actually, in many provinces there were almost insuperable legal barriers to clearing the woodlands; feudal obstacles were reinforced by the opposition of états, parlements, and intendants alike.120 FurH3La Bergerie, 47. ii*D3 15 (Marine) fols. 109-12; Mazoyer, 341. H5D3 3 (Marine) fol. 184. "«Gille, 74. U7D3 15 (Marine) fol. 111. Cf. D3 3 (Marine) fols. 183-6. Debien (45-93 passim] has found correlations between the movements of grain prices and the incidence of declarations by proprietors of intent to clear lands. H8La Bergerie, 47. 119 3 D 15 (Marine) fol. 111. 120 Notably in Languedoc, Roussillon, and Flanders. Debien's careful analysis of clearings in Haut-Poitou discloses that, in the 13 parishes studied, "the furrows were not lengthened at the expense of the forest." Debien, 85.

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thermore, forest law forbade the cutting of certain reserves of older trees, including any marked as naval reserve unless they were cut by the navy's representatives. Without local studies of the problem it is only possible to guess how much woodland was converted to the plough.121 But it can be asserted that the indirect effects of this clearing and reclaiming movement were probably as widespread and as serious in the long run as actually cutting trees. Wasteland was habitually used by local inhabitants for pasturing animals, and by the poorer classes as a source of fuel. When such wastelands were largely diminished, as was the case in some localities, the demands on the remaining woodlands increased. It was not unusual for forests, over a period of years, to be "damaged and pillaged in all their parts" by animals in quest of food and by country folk in search of fuel;122 the reclamation and clearing of land encouraged these abuses. The clearing movement, like the alienation of royal domains, attests that in the last decades of the ancien régime the desire for increased agricultural production and the quest for larger royal revenue had higher priority as objectives of policy than did forest conservation. Certainly the dominant preoccupation of the ministers in those years was the desperate and deepening financial crisis which placed them under great pressure. Depletion, as it became more acute, received relatively less attention ; conservation measures were not easily reconciled with the immediate financial advantages of exploiting the forests. The spectre of depletion, which had loomed very large as a threat to self-sufficiency in the minds of mercantilists, assumed less threatening proportions in the minds of eighteenthcentury physiocrats, some of whom were contrôleurs généraux, and still less importance in the minds of men counselling free trade. By the 1780's coal was supplanting wood as an industrial fuel on a considerable scale in France,123 and the example of Britain showed 121

One writer asserts that 359 thousand arpents were cleared, in all types of clearings, exclusive of Languedoc. La Bergerie, 50. However, Necker himself emphasized the difficulty of estimating the total acreage of clearings actually realized. See, La Vie économique, 104-5. Wooded land was evidently little affected by the clearings in Haut-Poitou. Debien, 85. Cf. reports from other provinces: D3 3 (Marine) fols. 183, 185-6; D3 15 (Marine) fol. 109; Mazoyer, 341; Sainte-Gertrude, 172. 122D3 15 (Marine) fol. 112. 123 Coal production increased at least tenfold in the 80 years before 1789, and stood at not less than 700 thousand tons per annum in the 1780's. Nef, War and Human Progress, 282-3.

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the French that their use of mineral fuel had only begun to expand. These developments helped the finance ministers to rationalize their substitution of forest exploitation for forest conservation. But as excuses they did not win over naval critics of forest administration, who rightly viewed depletion as an ominous threat to French sea power. One of these critics was moved to observe, near the end of the ancien régime, that "this part of the economic administration of the state is strangely neglected."124 It was bitter irony that the state should be accused of neglect after more than a century of legislative effort in behalf of conservation. Yet there can be no doubt that the legislation, though profuse, was undermined in practice by defective theories of forest management and by administrative wrongdoing and negligence. Many of the institutional maladies that enfeebled the Bourbon monarchy as a whole—the laxity of executive controls, the incompetence and venality of officials, and the extremes of financial confusion and pressure—concurred to weaken the effectiveness of legislation in a period when the demands on the forests greatly increased. The concern of rural inhabitants, industry, cities and towns, and the navy with the preservation of forest resources, where is existed at all, was distinctly secondary to their concern with exploitation. The interest of each of these users collided with that of the others; each sought to turn the intervention of the state to serve its own aims. Collectively they had no policy. Pressed by financial need, the contrôleurs généraux, ostensibly the managers and protectors of the forests, were unable to control their use. Long before the end of the ancien régime they joined the ranks of those intent on exploitation. The navy, and all other agencies dependent on forest resources, suffered the consequences. 124G. 122 (Marine) fol. 192.

CHAPTER SIX

Domestic Timber Shortage and the Navy

THE PROGRESS of forest depletion in France never allowed naval administrators to forget Colbert's warning: "La France périra faute de bois."1 The fact of depletion stressed the vital importance of self-sufficiency in naval stores as nothing else could. Timber, masts, and spars for the fleet, if not taken from domestic forests, could be acquired only at prodigious cost in foreign markets, and in times of war could be imported only with the greatest difficulty, if at all. Self-sufficiency, therefore, meant much in terms of economical naval administration, but infinitely more in strategic strength, for to the extent that domestic resources failed to satisfy naval needs, the strategic position of the fleet was weakened and its powers of sustained operation were reduced. With good reason, naval officials were gravely concerned when the dockyards, first Toulon and Marseille, and later the two Atlantic seaboard yards, found it inadvisable or impossible to satisfy their timber needs inside France. It has been shown that the forests of the southern and eastern provinces on which Marseille and Toulon depended for most of their supplies2 were from the Middle Ages onwards among the least protected and most abused woodlands in France.3 In Colbert's day the correspondence of naval officials and the reports of provincial intendants showed great concern over depletion of forests in these eastern provinces, and by the opening of the eighteenth century the want was so keenly felt at Toulon that attempts were being iQuoted by Albion, 183. Marseille and Toulon also drew some special-purpose timber, such as beech for galley oars, from the eastern Pyrenees. Cavaillès, 80. 3 Sainte-Gertrude, 53-5, 69. See chap, n, p. 16 above. 2

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made to draw on foreign sources of supply to ease the pressure of demand on domestic resources.4 Contracts were first signed for the importation of timber from Catalonia and from Italy. At the end of the War of Spanish Succession an immense contract was signed for Italian oak from Romagna.5 When this important contract did not fulfil its promise,6 an attempt was made to find Tuscan oak to serve instead, but the samples taken there were deemed inferior and improper for naval use.7 The failure of these efforts at importation threw Toulon back, for a time, to complete reliance on domestic timber, largely from the depleted woodlands of Burgundy and Franche-Comté. The extensive cuts made in these two provinces during the years that followed, by industrial users as well as by the navy, encroached more and more extensively on their reserves, and the quality of the timber they produced underwent marked deterioration.8 Maurepas, as minister of the navy, complained in 1726 that out of 35 thousand pieces of timber cut for Toulon in Burgundy and Franche-Comté between 1719 and 1726, only 1,150 could be employed.9 Reports indicating a deterioration in quality continued in the 1730's. In 1731 the intendant at Toulon wrote that nearly two-thirds of a large shipment from these provinces had been found to be useless.10 By 1735 tens of thousands of cubic feet of timber, adjudged *D3 13 (Marine) fols. 94-5, 130-2, 162-8, 183; BS 54 (Marine) fols. 11325, 193-8; IL 435 (Toulon) dossier 6; A. M. de Boislisle, Correspondance, II, 80-1, 100-2. 5 This contract specified delivery of 8 million cubic feet of oak at the rate of 500 thousand per annum. Brun, I, 159; B7 265 (Marine) letters of François Vollaire. Brun remarks (I, 109) that in 1702 "for the first time at Toulon," efforts were made to procure foreign timber. 6 The timber delivered from Italy, principally from Romagna, was adjudged useless "not only for ships but for buildings as well." Brun, I, 159. Deliveries of timber from Romagna to Toulon had been proposed, but vetoed, in Colbert's day. Colbert, III, pt. I, 201. 7 Brun, I, 159-60; D3 10 (Marine) fol. 138. An unfavourable predisposition on the part of the French may have been confirmed, in this case by the employment of seasoning practices improper for Italian oak, some of which was inclined to develop "shakes" or cracks, even when carefully treated. On the qualities of Italian timber: Laslett, 83-5; Fincham, Outline of Shipbuilding, 15; Albion, 400, 405. «Documents in series B», vols. 246, 253-5, 260, 340, and 410-11 clearly demonstrate the navy's heavy reliance on Franche-Comté and Burgundy after 1713, and the rapid depletion of forests in those provinces. 9 G. 75 (Marine) Maurepas to Mithon, 17 April 1726. JOBS 347 (Marine) fol. 340.

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too poor to warrant the cost of shipment, lay in the forests or on the banks of the rivers in Franche-Comté.11 The bad quality of these timber cuttings was variously attributed to the rigorous winter of 1709,12 to the carelessness of timber experts working in the forests, and to the general reduction of the number of standing trees from which to choose. Naval authorities strongly recommended that exploitations be curtailed or halted entirely to permit replenishment.13 Although large tracts of young trees remained for exploitation in later years, trees that were accessible and old enough to provide timber of the quality required were obviously scarce. Hopes of replenishment were dampened by the rapid growth of wood-fuel industries. In Burgundy, "up to the beginning of the eighteenth century, the manufactories had been strictly limited. At the end of that same century, the situation was completely reversed,"14 and in Franche-Comté the growth of industry was equally rapid and damaging to timber resources.15 Before 1750, the navy was forced to curtail drastically its exploitations in the depleted forests of these two provinces. Failure attended an effort, in 1735-6, to draw on untapped resources in Roussillon, though later efforts were more successful.10 Exploitations in other domestic forests continued, but fell far short of supplying needs.17 In the two decades following 1720, the domestic forests having been greatly reduced in quality and extent, officiais at Toulon found more attractive the hitherto unpalatable notion that foreign timber might be employed. Initially, consideration was given to the possibility of cutting timber in Savoy and along the shores of 13

B3 371 (Marine) especially the letter of Vanolles, intendant of Besançon, and attached memoir, fols. 86—92. 12B3 340 (Marine) fols. 451-3; D3 12 (Marine) fol. 50. The hard winter of 1709 became a veritable legend to which all manner of unpleasantnesses were attributed. Apparently the intense cold of that winter did, in fact, kill and damage tens of thousands of trees in various parts of France. Maurepas placed the blame on local inhabitants and other agencies for devastation for which the contrôleur général was largely responsible. Maurepas' letter, 23 August 1723, in G. 75 (Marine). 13 fi3 340 (Marine) fols. 101-5; B3 347 (Marine) fol. 340. "Gille, 73. !5AD VI (Arch Nat) dossier 913 on the period 1742-82; Monniot, 177-82; Gille, 69, 73. *6B3 371 (Marine) fols. 30-1; D3 5 (Marine) fols. 12-13. ^Indications are scattered through IL 435 (Toulon) passim: and B3 vols. 410-11.

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Lake Geneva for descent via the Rhône. More fruitful was a project for lumbering in the principality of Montbéliard, whence timber could be brought, as we have seen, via the Doubs-Saône-Rhône route to Toulon.18 Then again there was the Rhine area: naval officials had long been aware that the Dutch took much ship timber from Alsace, Lorraine, and other territories bordering the Rhine, and had shown some interest in acquiring Alsace timber via the Rhine in 1700.19 French interest revived in the 1720's and a series of shipments, some of which were destined for Toulon, began from Lorraine in 1728.20 These exploitations continued over a period of many years, and were facilitated in the 1730's when France acquired control of Lorraine, but Lorraine timber, at least the Lorraine timber that reached the dockyards, was of uneven quality and the French appear to have suspended its exploitation entirely before the 17505s.21 Meanwhile, the quest for shipbuilding timber to supply Marseille and Toulon had led across the Mediterranean. The attention of the navy was drawn eastward as far as Turkish Albania, where 5,000 cubic feet of splendid oak were cut near the Gulf of Arta (1731) and taken to Toulon for tests that extended over a six-year period.22 The quality of Albanian oak was judged excellent. But in Albania, as in many other undeveloped forest areas, transportation was difficult. The mountainous character of the country necessitated heavy outlays for roads, but the political unsettlement and military activity in the area discouraged investment in such enterprises.23 No entrepreneur, French or foreign, was then found to undertake large-scale cuts. However, continued deterioration in the quality and lessening of the available quantity of domestic timber did revive efforts to draw 1} *See 19

chap, iv, p. 58. In 1691 the intendant at Metz reported Dutch timber exploitations in the 3 Saar. B 67 (Marine) fols. 700-8; B3 119 (Marine) fols. 449-50. On French interest in Alsace timber: three memoirs, all dated 1700, in D3 8 (Marine) fols. 145-50, 152-4, 157-8. 20 5E2 15 (Rochefort) "Mémoire du Sieur Babaud sur les Envoys de ces bois"; D3 8 (Marine) fols. 56, 207; B3 383 (Marine) fols. 73-4. 21 Adverse judgments on quality were rendered from 1733 onward; one contract for Lorraine timber was cancelled in 1741. 5E2 (Rochefort) "Extrait de l'Etat des Bois" (1733); D3 8 (Marine) fols. 56, 207; B3 384 (Marine) fols. 209-10; D3 12 (Marine) fol. 50; Brun, I, 261, 264. 22 3 B 382 (Marine) fols. 284-5: Brun, I, 236. 23 3 D 9 (Marine) fols. 131-42.

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on Italian sources of supply. The intendant Mithon, of Toulon, attacked the prevailing suspicion of Italian oak by representing "that vessels constructed at Genoa were very durable, as were the ships and galleys constructed of the same timber for [the Order of] Malta."24 Mithon pointed out that Spain used ships constructed of Italian timber and, furthermore, that the Italian timber which had given an unfavourable first impression at Toulon in 1715 had since been used and proved satisfactory.25 Mithon's fellow officials were not easily convinced. An offer of Italian oak had been rejected by the minister, Maurepas, as late as 1728 on the ground that "experience has shown Italian timber to be unserviceable."26 But on Mithon's insistence, new inspections were authorized with a view to exploitations in Lucca and Tuscany. After protracted negotiation a contract was signed for timber deliveries from Italy in 1729.27 Contracting agents and timber inspectors were sent to Italy again in 1730 and agreements were signed that year for shipments of Tuscan oak in spite of the lack of enthusiasm displayed by the Tuscan government.28 It was soon discovered that there were, as Laslett later observed, several varieties of valuable oak trees scattered over the whole length of the Italian peninsula whose horny, tough, and extremely hard texture made them well suited to naval shipbuilding.29 Italian forests produced some straight pieces and much compass timber of great dimension. Once the entrenched suspicion of Italian oak was proved unfounded, the proximity of Italian forests encouraged the expansion of naval exploitations. Cuts were facilitated for the French by the generally negligent attitude of the petty Italian states toward their forest resources. In Italian principalities, often governed by careless and corrupt administrators, little attention was given to the preservation of woodlands. In the management of natural resources, the Italian princes of the time had not the wit Afinan, I, 230. 25 Ibid., I, 230. Suspicion of Italian oak died slowly. As late as 1749 a special test of Italian oak was conducted. "Far from authorizing prejudice," the test revealed that the timber possessed excellent shipbuilding qualities. D3 9 (Marine) fol. 78. 26 G. 75 (Marine) Maurepas to Cardinal Polignac, 24 April 1728. 2?B3 333 (Marine) fols. 425-6, 457-9; Brun, I, 230. 28B3 448 (Marine) fols. 125-6, 250-3; Brun, I, 235-6, 277-8, 320, 330. 29 Duhamel du Monceau, De l'exploitation des bois, I, 289-90; Laslett, 83-4; Albion, 400, 405.

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or the energy to establish effective conservation practices, or to erect serious obstacles to foreign exploitations. Only the city states of Genoa and Venice entertained a serious interest in timber for the construction of ships.30 Venice, though weak, succeeded in hampering the French in their timber buying in the Adriatic from time to time and in 1784 effected the closure of Istrian forests to French exploitation.31 Other difficulties resulted from Austrian and Spanish influence in Italy. French timber cuts were restricted or halted throughout much of Italy by Habsburg influence in times of war until the diplomatic revolution of 1756. Spain was an active rival in the bidding for Italian oak, and during much of the century, with the approbation of the English, who were particularly influential at the Neapolitan Court, the French were excluded from Neapolitan forests.32 But the resources of northwestern and central Italy, notably those of Tuscany and the Papal States, were open to the French and were the focus of gradually intensified activity on their part. More southerly forests were inspected before 1771, with encouraging reports in the case of Calabria,33 but it was not until the 1780's that France obtained permission to draw from those woodlands.34 The geographic spread of French naval exploitations in Italy, and in the Mediterranean area, proceeded in opportunistic fashion without proper direction or plan. French consuls at Rome, Leghorn, Naples, Trieste, and Arta did, however, give some informal 30

On Venetian forest conservation practice: Lane, 220-8. B7 450 (Marine) "Mémoire général sur le Commerce de Trieste," dated 1784; D3 9 (Marine) fols. 83-92. 32R1 81 (Marine) fol. 125; BI 82 (Marine) fol. 230. On Neapolitan and Spanish opposition in thé 1760's: IL 435 (Toulon) "Propositions des Bois . . . des Deux Calabres. . . ." (1761?) ; Brun, I, 489. Spanish influence was not the only obstacle to Neapolitan exploitations. "Mémoire sur les Bois du Royaume de Naples" (1783), indicates that "the contractor of the King [of France] has for many months solicited permission to make contracts and purchases. After all the delays and expenses, to which one is exposed in a country where nothing is done unless slowly and with money in hand," the French were given assurances from all parties that an agreement would soon be made, "but M. Tanucci, then Prime Minister, who openly favoured the English, shelved negotiations." D3 9 (Marine) fol. 94. 33 B1 73 (Marine) fol. 60; B* 77 (Marine) fol. 129; Brun, I, 368. 34 1A* 93 (Toulon) Castries to Possel, 7 August 1783; D3 9 (Marine) fols. 94-6; F12 1665 (Arch Nat) in which records of the Bureau de la Balance du Commerce indicate Toulon's imports from Naples and Sicily. 31

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direction to cuts. These diplomatic agents, who were responsible to the navy during the ancien régime, sometimes prepared reports on the forests in the area to which they were accredited. But in many cases their reports were generalized and obviously ill-informed, hardly calculated to receive more than perfunctory attention from the notoriously sceptical naval officials at Toulon. Consular officers were more important as intermediaries in the contract negotiations between foreign merchants and the navy.35 Foreign merchants sometimes approached French consuls in their locality with offers of timber; more often, however, the merchants addressed their propositions direct to the naval dockyard at Toulon. In response, survey parties might be dispatched to examine the timber offered for sale. The mere presence of such an inspection party in a locality was apt to stir further offers from that or adjacent areas. Contract negotiations with Italian entrepreneurs were more difficult and far less advantageous to the navy than dealings with native French contractors. Since the French government had not any direct legal power over foreign contractors, it was only by rejecting inferior timber and withholding payment for deliveries already made that it could exercise a semblance of control, and even so, these measures were sometimes forestalled by hard-bargaining Italian merchants who demanded large advances to finance their operations and required prompt payment, sometimes on a monthly basis. They sought to make their deliveries at the risk of the French king, and often succeeded in having their timber definitely accepted by the navy at the Italian port of embarcation, instead of at the Toulon destination, thus avoiding the possibility of rejection by inspectors at Toulon. Italian timber was not only acquired under "conditions very disadvantageous to the king,"36 but also came at much higher prices than domestic timber. At Toulon, timber imported from Italy was priced at 3 livres 15 sous and 4 livres the cubic foot in 1751, at a time when domestic timber brought a maximum of 3 livres 5 sous.37 Before 1770 Italian timber prices rose to 41/? and 5 livres the cubic 35

Advances and payments for deliveries of timber were sometimes remitted to Italian contractors through French consular officers. 36D3 2 (Marine) fols. 174-5. 3^1 66 (Marine) fols. 62-3.

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foot while domestic timber ranged below 3/2-38 In 1764 it was shown to be cheaper to ship timber from Picardie all the way round Spain and into the Mediterranean to Toulon than to pay the prices demanded by Italian entrepreneurs.39 Price negotiations with Genoese merchants were particularly disheartening to French naval officials; "all is easy in the propositions they make," but in matters of price, it was said, "all becomes difficult."40 In 1768 one group of industrious Genoese merchants, presuming correctly that France would soon have greater need of Italian timber, "purchased forests in the Ecclesiastical States in the hope of being masters of that supply.'541 Until 1748 exploitations in Italy were frequently interrupted and appear to have been small. As late as 1741, imports from there aggregated only 25 thousand cubic feet in a total of 200 thousand supplied to Toulon that year.42 The 1740's, years of international tension, war, and naval activity, would probably have seen a great increase in imports had Austrian influence not closed most of the forests of Italy to the navy. During the war years the French were again forced to rely to a large extent on domestic timber, mostly from the depleted woodlands of Burgundy, Franche-Comté, and Montbéliard.43 After the war, one naval official declared (1751) that if Toulon could not obtain timber from outside the realm, nearly all new constructions in the port would cease.44 In the period of the Seven Years' War, domestic exploitations enormously expanded, but even so they could not meet the demand. In the first 4 years of the struggle, contracts were let for 1,840 thousand cubic feet of oak for Toulon, more than half of which 38B1 71 (Marine) fol. 15; B* 75 (Marine) fol. 137. 39 1 B 69 (Marine) fol. 253. The principal Italian contractors after the middle of the century were Henri de Pietro, who held contracts in the 1750's and 1760's, and Cavagnaro and Rossi of the 1760's and 1770's. One Christophe Colombo was also involved in contracting. 40fi3 333 (Marine) fol. 75. 41B1 73 (Marine) fol. 61. 42 3 B 410 (Marine) containing a series of monthly "Etats des Bois qui ont été reçus dans l'arsenal de Toulon," fols. 12-487. 43 On exploitations at these sources of supply: B3 427 (Marine) fols. 319, 322; B3 450 (Marine) fol. 269. In 1749 thé intendant at Toulon pessimistically informed the minister that these forests were exhausted: "One can no longer count on the forests of Montbéliard nor those of Franche-Comté, and there remains very little in the forests of Burgundy." B3 482 (Marine) fol. 128. 44fii 66 (Marine) fol. 62.

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45

was scheduled to come from foreign sources. Toulon was "obliged to draw on Italian forests/'46 and on those of Turkish Albania as well. After the war, exploitations in Italy declined in proportion to those in France, but remained on a level higher than in earlier years. Whereas in 1742 Italian imports amounted to only 25 thousand cubic feet in a total delivery of 200 thousand, the Italian share in the scheduled shipments of 1769 amounted to 70 thousand with 20 thousand more "from Italy or Albania" in a total of 186 thousand.47 Although hampered in the 1770's by difficulties with Italian entrepreneurs, Toulon's imports from Italy continued to grow. Deliveries anticipated for 1771 included a total of 71 thousand cubic feet from home and 70 thousand from Italy, with an additional 20 thousand from "Naples, Albania, and other areas."48 An Italian timber contract for 340 thousand cubic feet was awarded in 1771 and two years later, when the entrepreneur failed to fulfil this large obligation, other arrangements were made to obtain 200 thousand cubic feet.49 Some Italian merchants became disgruntled with French inspectors at Toulon, where considerable quantities of compass timber (curved timber and knees) had been rejected on the ground that the dockyard was already overstocked; "tout à coup" the merchants stopped their deliveries to France and sent their timber to the Spanish shipyards at Cartagena instead.50 But the French, not to be denied, contracted with other merchants and sent representatives to Italy to organize new exploitations. Although Italian forests in the 1770's were showing signs of exhaustion in areas then under exploitation, especially near the coasts,51 French cuts were pushed with vigour. A convention with Ragusa, govern45 That is, 918,500 cubic feet from domestic forests, 922 thousand from abroad. From Italy, 486 thousand cubic feet, slightly more than the scheduled deliver^' of 436 thousand from Albania. D3 5 (Marine) fols. 10-11. Cf. Brun, I, 381. *6D3 2 (Marine) fol. 174. 47B3 580 (Marine) fols. 280-1. 48 1 B 77 (Marine) fols. 51-2. It is noteworthy that the cost of the domestic shipments was estimated at 176 thousand livres, and those from Italy (slightly smaller in volume) at 280 thousand. 49R1 80 (Marine) fol. 131. 50D3 3 (Marine) fol. 72; BI 81 (Marine) fols. 125, 197-8; B* 82 (Marine) fol. 230. ^B1 77 (Marine) fol. 129. Depletion was attributed to cuts undertaken by the Order of Malta, the Spanish, the Genoese, and the French themselves.

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ing the traffic and exempting timber from all levies, was signed in the spring of 1776.52 In early 1775 the secretary of state for the navy, fully aware that war with England was a probability, urged that measures be taken "to push with all vivacité the exploitation and shipment of timber . . . in the environs of Rome."53 The French naval commissioner in Italy had already arranged for delivery of 175 thousand cubic feet and was seeking entrepreneurs to take out more.54 Meanwhile the pressure of demand had occasioned attempts to multiply foreign sources of supply in the Mediterranean area. The excellent quality of samples taken from Albania in the 1730's and in later years had seemed inviting, even though exploitations had not then been practicable.55 Perennially, the most serious obstacle to the extraction of Albanian timber was the difficulty of procuring passports (firmans] from the Sultan authorizing exploitations in Turkish territory. Failure to obtain such permission prevented fruition of more than one contract before the middle of the eighteenth century. But the difficulty, if not impossibility of securing formal permission did not prevent the tapping of Albanian sources in later years. On the eve of the Seven Years' War a very large contract was awarded for timber from this source, calling for delivery of more than 400 thousand cubic feet.56 After the war, an Italian merchant successfully executed an Albanian contract (1766-73),57 and late in the 1760's two Greek merchants were partnered with a French entrepreneur by the name of Aguillon for large deliveries from Albania. Their enterprises in Turkish territory were carried on beneath a façade of merchant-to-merchant commerce. French naval personnel were sent to Albania, in merchant guise, to supervise exploitations. Under this arrangement, large shipments of "contraband" Albanian timber were delivered by Greek merchants on Neapolitan ships, without Turkish permission, 521 A1 75 (Toulon) fols. 274-8 (copy of the ratified agreement). 531L 435 (Toulon) "Instruction pour M. de Fraigne" (1775); B3 622 (Marine) fol. 97; B3 621 (Marine) fols. 81-2, 85-6. 54B3 622 (Marine) fols. 95-6. 55 Samples of Albanian timber were brought to Toulon in the 1730's. There were negotiations for a contract in the 1740's. Brun, I, 368-9; B3 482 (Marine) fols. 151-3. 56D3 5 (Marine) fols. 10-11, 16; D3 1 (Marine) fols. 42-3. STfii 79 (Marine) fol. 231.

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58

to the French naval yards at Toulon. No less than 145 cargoes of Albanian timber arrived at Toulon during the years 1769-77.59 During the war with Britain from 1778 onwards, Greek merchants signed large contracts and made sizable deliveries to Toulon (at very high prices) in spite of the difficulty of wartime shipment,60 and their deliveries were of great importance. At the end of the war, in 1783, it was said that "without their timber it would have been impossible to execute the works of construction accomplished over a long period of recent years." For Toulon, Albanian timber was "one of the greatest resources."61 Exploitations continued on a large scale in the years after 1783.62 58 These Greek merchants, who held numerous contracts in the decades of the seventies and eighties, ran considerable risk. The export traffic in naval timber was specifically forbidden by the Turkish government. It was only through intrigues and misrepresentation of their purposes to the Sultan's provincial governors, said the merchants, that they obtained authorization even to engage in the exploitation and shipment of timber within the confines of the Ottoman Empire. To cut timber, the merchants were, they claimed, 4 'obliged to buy permission at great cost from the Turkish Commandant of the Dependency in which the forests are found." The Commandant's fees doubled and trebled with later cuts, and the merchants were always required to promise that the timber "was not destined for shipment to any ports other than those of the Grand Seigneur." IL 435 (Toulon) Castries to Fabry and Malouet, 19 January 1783; 1 A* (Toulon) untitled memoir dated 1775, which maximizes the difficulties of the Greek merchants. Albanian exploitations were hampered by the lack of skilled labour for the work at the cutting site and the recalcitrance of impressed workers. 59D3 3 (Marine) fols. 73-4. A total of 20 ships arrived in the years 1769 to 1772, 40 in 1773, 23 in 1774, and, from 1775 to 1777, a total of 62. IL 435 (Toulon) "Etat des nollis Payés . . . au Patrons Napolitans pour le transport des Bois," and the "Traité passé avec Le Sr François Aguillon." eofii 88 (Marine) fol. 97; Bl 92 (Marine) fol. 47; IL 435 (Toulon) "Tableau servant à faire connoitre les frais énormes que les Srs Stamaty et Micalopolo ont été obligé de payer" and "Réponse au Mémoire présenté . . . par Sieurs Stamaty et Micalopolo." The Greek merchants paid 900 thousand livres to their French partner in the affair, Aguillon of Toulon, to cover freight and other payments advanced by him when shipments arrived at Toulon. 611L 435 (Toulon) Castries to Fabry and Malouet, 19 January 1783; 1A1 93 (Toulon) Castries to Malouet, 19 January 1783. 625E 442 (Toulon) fols. 131-4; 1A* 137 (Toulon) "Estrait . . . des Résultats du Conseil" (1785); B1 92 (Marine) fols. 47, 98; fil 98 (Marine) fols. 85-9. In 1776 and again in the period 1783-5, a curious project for timber cuts in what is now north-central Yugoslavia was considered. Timber was to be cut along the Rivers Kulpa and Save, floated down the Danube to the Black Sea, then shipped through the Straits, but no actual exploitation appears

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Although Italy and Albania became, in the second half of the eighteenth century, indispensable sources of timber supply for the southern dockyard, sea communications in the Mediterranean were tenuous. Shipments were subject to loss by capture in wartime, and on the eve of war with Britain, in 1776, the navy revived its earlier hopes that resources closer to Toulon, such as those offered by Savoy and Corsica, might be tapped. But there were difficulties. Serious, though not insuperable, transportation problems barred extensive exploitations in Savoy. The proposals of a group of Swiss bankers were heard, but were discouraging. Having no experience in the exploitation of ship timber, the Swiss showed themselves unwilling to contract without guarantees of substantial profits. The French, on the other hand, were reluctant to invest heavily in the development of water routes, and certainly were unwilling to guarantee a profit to Swiss entrepreneurs without knowing the quality of the timber and masts that might be delivered. Negotiations did not produce a contract. Major Swiss exploitations were left for the Directory and Empire.63 More fruitful were the attempts to acquire timber from Corsica. Lying less than 140 sea miles away, the island tantalized Toulon with its rich forests for many decades. It possessed a great wealth of masting trees and a considerable scattering of fine hardwood as well, but there were problems, both political and technological, which long delayed exploitations. Before the French acquired the island, readily accessible forests were largely devastated by local inhabitants, and by the lumbering operations of the Genoese, the Sardinians, and the Order of Malta. French missions sent to inspect the forests in 1738 and again in 1748 advised the ministry that nearly all accessible trees were either too small or too old to be of use to the navy. The island was rugged and mountainous and most of the suitable trees that remained were said to be "too distant from the sea"; extensive river and road constructions were considered necessary preliminaries to any naval cuts. Moreover, the French to have been made. B* 83 (Marine) fols. 151-2, 158, 170; 1A* vols. 93-4 (Toulon) Castries to Malouet, 9 August 1783 and 16 April 1784; 1A1 237 (Toulon) Malouet to Castries, 16 June 1785. 631A1 75 (Toulon) fol. 126; IL 435 (Toulon) untitled memoir, 20 February 1776; D3 10 (Marine) fols. 187, 203; F10 643 (Arch Nat) "Mémoires sur les relations commerciales de ce Département avec la Suisse et le Valais" (1810).

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inspectors reported "frightful troubles" with local inhabitants, then under Genoese rule, which then made it unwise to invest in the island or expect much from attempts to cut.64 The dispatch of French troops to Corsica in the 1760's seemed to promise the establishment of more propitious conditions.65 A contract was signed with the Sieur Nalet, munitionnaire of French troops in Corsica, who sought to extract 600 thousand cubic feet of board, plank, and timber, but his enterprise brought only 3 shipments to Toulon.66 A company of French entrepreneurs then tried their hand (1768), but they apparently "didn't know the dangers of their enterprise"; their efforts came to nought.67 When, after further inspection of Corsican forests,68 exploitations finally did get under way during the War of American Revolution, the island provided enormous quantities of board and plank. These deliveries continued after 1783 in such quantities that the minister had first to reduce the scheduled shipments, and finally called a halt to exploitations.69 Within four decades, Toulon had been forced to make heavy foreign purchases, principally from Italy. Thereafter, dependence on foreign sources increased until, in the last decade of the ancien régime, deliveries of oak from Italy and Albania largely exceeded those from French forests. In a single year, 1787, great quantities r

^D3 9 (Marine) fols. 5-12; Brun, I, 369. A contract was let for exploitations during the Seven Years' War, but deliveries do not appear to have been made. D3655 (Marine) fols. 10, 16. Agreements with the Genoese in 1764 authorized the presence of French garrisons. Genoese sovereignty was renounced in May 1768, and the island was united to France by decree in August 1768. Mirot, 267. Incidentally, there are 60 pages of manuscript Paoli correspondence with the French tucked away in B3 579 (Marine) fols. 285 seq. GSBrun, I, 488. G71A1 93 (Toulon) Houvet letter, 15 April 1783; B* 73 (Marine) fol. 74; B3 579 (Marine) fol. 94. GS1L 435 (Toulon) "Journal des Visites faites dans Les forêts de l'isle de Corse" (1768) and memoir (untitled) signed Mollinier, July 1777; 1A1 73 (Toulon) Sartine to Dasque, 3 November 1775; 1A1 75 (Toulon) Sartine to Basque, 15 April 1776; B* 595 (Marine) fols. 156-7, 176-7. 69fii 84 (Marine) fols. 199, 269; Bi 88 (Marine) fols. 24, 53, 141; 1A* 134 (Toulon) "Etat de Bois de pin et sapin de Corse" (1780); 1A* 93 (Toulon) Castries to Malouet, 13, 18 May and 14 December 1783; Series 5E (Toulon) unnumbered vols, of marchés (1783-91) passim] 1A1 93 (Toulon) Castries to Malouet, 13 April, 13 and 18 May 1783; B» 766 (Marine) fols. 88-9; D3 9 (Marine) fols. 19-21, 29-52 passim.

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of ship timber for Toulon came from such diverse Italian sources as the Papal States, Genoa, Milan, Tuscany, Lucca, Parma, NaplesSicily, and from Corsica and the Ottoman Empire as well.70 The dockyards on the Atlantic seaboard gradually came, as did Toulon, to depend on foreign sources of supply, but with them the process did not start so soon. Of course Brest and Rochefort received large shipments of foreign timber in the seventeenth century, but those imports, particularly heavy in the Colbert period, were occasioned, not by the extinction of domestic reserves but, as we have seen, by the temporary inadequacy of domestic exploitations to meet the demands of the navy. Domestic forests supplying these two arsenals were still well-stocked when, during and immediately following the War of Spanish Succession, Spanish timber was cut in Guipúzcoa and shipped from Guetaria and San Sebastian to supply the wartime needs of Rochefort.71 Cuts of Lorraine timber, undertaken in the first half of the eighteenth century, substituted for the product of domestic forests over a considerable period, and put farther off the day when the importation of timber would become essential. Large shipments of low-cost plank and board from northern Europe, and some imports from Canada, also helped to relieve the burden of demand on the Atlantic seaboard timbershed which had, after all, at least double the extent of the Toulon timbershed. Hence the impact of depletion was delayed for Rochefort and Brest, but throughout the eighteenth century, the authorities at those dockyards were aware of the imminence of a timber shortage. The general recession of forests away from coasts and rivers and the progressive worsening of timber assortments were cause for alarm: certainly compass timber and pieces of exceptional size were periodically in short supply during the first two-thirds of the eighteenth century and their scarcity could often be rightly attributed to depletion of the forests. And the example of Toulon's increasing lack of timber and the long-term rise in the cost of shipbuilding timber could hardly be overlooked. In 1755 a contract was signed for the exploitation of timber in Champagne, a Roche70pi2 1665 (Arch Nat) Records of the Bureau de la Balance du Commerce. 71 The original intent was, in spite of heavy transit costs, to ship Lorraine timber via Dort to Toulon, but the opening of Italian forests reduced the needs of the Mediterranean port and most Lorraine timber actually went to Brest.

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fort-Brest preserve, for shipment around Spain to hard-pressed Toulon.72 Similar shipments were considered in 1762, and two large cargoes of "the most rare" timbers were sent from Rouen to Toulon in 1764 for the completion of three ships there under construction.73 But even as timber was being shipped from their preserves to the Mediterranean, Brest and Rochefort were themselves beginning to look to northern Europe for timber. In 1766 entrepreneurs contracted to import not only the usual board and plank, but heavy Pomeranian oak timber as well.74 This contract, while not without precedent, presaged more pressing needs and larger imports in the near future. In 1769 the intendant at Rochefort remarked, with better reason than earlier commentators, that "extreme scarcity will be experienced in the very near future."75 The scarcity he foretold was first evident, as might have been expected, in a dearth of special varieties of ship timber in the 1770's. The intensification of naval activity in those years sped the approach of domestic shortage and increased the keenness with which the dearth was felt. In 1774, four years before the outbreak of the War of American Revolution, 19 French naval vessels, including 12 ships-of-the-line, were under construction or major repair, and by the end of 1775 the number had risen to 33, including 15 of the line.76 Such activity required not only enormous stocks of timber, but good assortments, gathered with an eye to the peculiarities of demand. Good assortments were then rare; individual pieces of several different types were lacking at the Ponant dockyards. When, in 1775, Toulon was short of straight timber of large dimension but well-supplied with compass timber, Rochefort and Brest were hard-pressed for certain varieties of compass timber.77 In 1777, deliveries scheduled for Rochefort and Brest 72D3 5 (Marine) fols. 14-15. 73G. 122 (Marine) fol. 188; B* 69 (Marine) fol. 251. 74B1 70 (Marine) fols. 88-90; fil 74 (Marine) fol. 282; D* 8 (Marine) fols. 77-80. 75B3 583 (Marine) fols. 399-400. 76 5 B 10 (Marine) "Comparison de l'Etat où se trouvait la Marine du Roi au Mois d'août 1774 avec son état actuel" (December 1775 or January 1776). 77D3 3 (Marine) fols. 71-2; B* 81 (Marine) fols. 125, 127. The surplus of compass timber at Toulon resulted partly from Italian and Albanian imports, and also from the fact, remarked in 1786, that "the trees are scattered and are not gathered in forest bodies in Provence, Upper Languedoc, Dauphiné, and

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aggregated over 1 million cubic feet,78 but compass timber remained extremely scarce; in that year two cargoes of such pieces were shipped to Brest from Toulon; at the latter yard further deliveries of compass timber from Albania were being refused because the storage yards and hangars were "surcharged" with courbes.19 In the years 1778-83, the shortage of compass timber became so severe at Rochefort and Brest that prices were raised as much as \1/^ livres the cubic foot to encourage contractors to ferret it out. When that expedient failed, "iron timbers" were manufactured at two and one-half times the cost of oak to supply the need.80 After hostilities ceased, the shortage of this type of timber, and of large pieces in general, was severe at Rochefort and Brest, and was only relieved by imports from northern Europe.81 Since the assortments of domestic timber arriving at the dockyards on the eve of the War of American Revolution were illproportioned to needs, the authorities at the seaboard arsenals were very favourably disposed to offers of timber by a company of Hamburg merchants in 1776.82 Naval officials were not deterred by the fact that the terms offered were highly advantageous to the merchants themselves. The prices quoted were high and, with transit charges, would "considerably exceed" prices currently being paid for domestic timber.83 Moreover, the Hamburg timber was offered only in large assortments of from 200 to 2,000 pieces, comprising Vivarais" where domestic cuts for Toulon were made. Scattered or isolated trees were apt to produce much compass timber; hence the surplus of such pieces, and shortage of straight timber at Toulon. Quotation from art. 14, Règlement du roi, 16 December 1786. Brest and Rochefort, short of compass timber, but better stocked with straight pieces, evidently drew from extensive rather than from "thin" forest. 78B1 83 (Marine) fol. 272. Brest had 1,457 thousand cubic feet on hand in January 1777. B1 84 (Marine) fol. 280. 79B1 83 (Marine) fol. 272; BI 84 (Marine) fols. 237-8; 1A1 134 (Toulon) "Etat des bois de chênes en courbans Embarqués sur Les deux gabarres . . . pour passer à Brest" (1777). 80B1 96 (Marine) fols. 13-15; B* 98 (Marine) fol. 3; D3 12 (Marine) fol. 150. sifii 96 (Marine) fol. 15; B1 98 (Marine) fol. 3; B3 769 (Marine) fols. 178-91; lAi 94 (Toulon) fols. 360-1. 82 The Hamburg Company, known to the French as the Compagnie du Commerce de Bois de Construction de l'Administration Générale du Roi de Prusse, was an agency for the sale of timber from Prussian royal domains. S3B* 83 (Marine) fol. 129; B1 84 (Marine) fol. 31; B* 88 (Marine) fols. 135, 137, 192.

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some highly desirable pieces but many common varieties little needed or desired by the French. Nevertheless, two cargoes were sent to Brest as samples by a French inspector in Hamburg, and large contracts were ultimately signed.84 Deliveries made in 1778 were large, and those scheduled for Rochefort and Brest in 1779 exceeded 350 thousand cubic feet.83 But timber imports from the north almost entirely ceased during the war; not until after 1783 did northern timber finally approach the quantitative importance of domestic timber in the supply of Rochefort and Brest. On the very eve of peace, in 1783, new contracts for both domestic and foreign timber were signed. Timbers of exceptional size, especially courbes for the maintenance and reconstruction of large ships, were needed in greater number than before, since the fleet included more vessels of first and second rank than at any earlier period in the century.86 Special efforts were made to find such pieces, and the prices paid to naval contractors for their exploitation and delivery were again increased.87 But the resources of domestic forests were more depleted than ever, and unable to supply "tailored" assortments for the yards; foreign timber had become a positive necessity for Rochefort and Brest if their activity as construction yards was to be sustained.88 Hamburg remained the principal source of imports of northern timber after the war. The French Consul General at that city was recalled and sent to Rochefort in 1783 for consultations on the needs of the ports and the conditions of the timber traffic;89 timber 8ME 210 (Rochefort) fol. 32; BI 83 (Marine) fol. 201; B* 88 (Marine) fols. 59, 95. 85B1 85 (Marine) fol. 266; B* 88 (Marine) fol. 135. 86B3 769 (Marine) fol. 179. 87fi3 769 (Marine) fols. 178-91; 1A1 94 (Toulon) fols. 360-1. ssfto 24 (Marine) "Inventaire général des munitions" (Rochefort 1783) ; B5 26 (Marine) "Inventaire" (Brest 1785). The volume numbered D3 16 (Marine) contains a "Relève des Bois de Construction en Planches, en Avirons et de Sapins Importés dans le Royaume" for the year 1782, with a similar folio chart for 1784. These two documents indicate the quantity, value, and source of imports totalling 6,400 thousand livres in 1782 and 4,100 thousand in 1784. Both were prepared by the Bureau de la Balance du Commerce, and probably include non-naval as well as naval imports. Accompanying the two charts is an undated, but contemporary evaluation, apparently from the pen of a naval official, disparaging their validity as an underestimate and criticizing the statistical methods employed by the Bureau. Similar statistics on imports during 1788 are scattered throughout F12 1835 (Arch Nat). *91E 224 (Rochefort) fol. 43.

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inspectors were detached from Rochefort for service at Hamburg. A French Compagnie du Nord, privately organized for the purpose, undertook the shipment of imports to France for the navy from various northern ports after 1783.90 In 1786 alone, the ships of this Company brought no less than 32 cargoes totalling 208 thousand cubic feet from Hamburg to Brest.91 On 4 June 1789, the Comte de Luzerne made known to the Chamber of Deputies that annual imports from Hamburg included "about 170 thousand cubic feet of timber for the service of the navy.5'92 Even this partial dependence on foreign timber entailed serious problems for Rochefort and Brest, for competition in the northern timber market was very sharp, and France was always at a disadvantage.93 Toulon, however, was relatively close to the Italian and Albanian forests, and in the eighteenth century Spain was the only major competitor,94 for English naval buyers did not appear in the Italian timber market until the next century.95 Toulon's purchases did not, therefore, involve those sharp rivalries which put the buyer entirely at the mercy of the foreign merchant. In the Mediterranean market, importation simply involved the selection of suitable pieces and the rejection of those deemed unfit for naval use. Even timber deliveries of good quality could be refused if the yard was over-supplied with pieces of that particular type. The Atlantic seaboard dockyards never became heavily reliant on imported timber in the old regime, as did Toulon. Yet it must be emphasized that the strategic positions of all the French dockyards were weakened as dependence on foreign timber was gradually added to the long-standing necessity of importing foreign masts. For Brest particularly, dependence on imports promised to transform short communications into lengthy overseas lines of supply leading north under the very noses of the English at Woolwich and Chatham. Toulon's position was only slightly better, with the British at Gibraltar and a liberal sprinkling of British informers scattered throughout the length of Italy. 9

°B3 794 (Marine) fols. 264-8, 278-9, 284-5. 91D3 8 (Marine) fol. 138; IE 224 (Rochefort) fol. 96. ^Mémoires et documents, 4th ser., 240-1. 93 See chapter vin. 94 The importance of Spanish buying in the Italian timber market diminished in the eighteenth century when much Spanish naval construction was carried on in the New World, particularly at Havana. 95 According to Laslett, Italian oak was introduced to Britain "about the year 1820." Laslett, 84; Albion, 400.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Quest for Domestic and Colonial Masts and Spars

MASTS imported from the north conferred only one advantage: their quality was excellent. The problem of the French was to acquire these fine northern masts without paying top prices and without incurring the grave strategic disabilities that dependence upon them involved in wartime. The stockpiling of imported masts, in anticipation of broken wartime communications, offered at least a partial solution to the problem. Stockpiling of matériel on a large scale, however, required far-sighted policy executed with determination by consistent naval leadership; it required heavy peacetime investment in the interests of naval preparedness.1 These requirements were not met in France before 1783, and the navy never stockpiled foreign masts in sufficient number to forestall wartime shortage. Only one other solution of the problem was possible: the substitution of Frenchgrown masts for those imported from the north. Exploitation and transportation of the domestic product, even including outlays for the construction of essential road and river passages, did not usually equal the cost of northern masts delivered at construction yards. Even masts cut in distant New France did not necessarily exceed foreign importations in cost. Furthermore, 1

Stockpiling programmes, of course, also proceeded on the assumption that a reliable method of long-term storage had been evolved. This condition appears to have been at least partly met in France. At Brest, masts were customarily submerged in water, preferably salt water, or better still were buried in mud or fine sand for storage. Fincham, Treatise on Masting Ships (1843), 177-8. At Toulon, on the contrary, immersion was believed to be a cause of rapid drying and deterioration in masts, and hence hangar storage was practised and preferred. Garraud, 155, 218-31.

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masts from the realm rendered foreign merchants and foreign shipping unnecessary and, what must have seemed even more desirable from a mercantilist point of view, bullion payments to foreigners could thereby be reduced. In logistical terms, the employment of domestic masts conferred the advantage of short coastal communications, as from Bayonne to Rochefort or Brest, or from the mouth of the Rhône to Toulon—routes that were dangerous but often passable in wartime, and certainly less precarious than North Sea or Baltic lines of supply. Even Canadian masts, on a longer passage, were much less subject to seizure than those from Norway and the Baltic. The weight of these multiple advantages on the side of French-grown masts launched the French, in the 1660's, on a quest for domestic and colonial masting trees that was to endure for over a century. The substitution of French for foreign masts, when undertaken by Colbert in the seventeenth century, proceeded on the assumption that the domestic product would match the quality of Norwegian and Baltic fir; indeed, it was Colbert's positive conviction that French and northern masts were peers.2 Superficially, domestic trees were well-proportioned, resinous, and flexible; perhaps Colbert was justified in expecting the best of them. But he and those of his contemporaries who shared his view were disappointed. Masts from domestic forests were serviceable but, as a memoirist later observed, it was "a constant fact that French fir are inferior to those of the north."3 The masts brought from Canada were little better than the domestic ones. The French were aware, of course, that for naval purposes it was unwise to allow any other advantage to outweigh excellence of quality in matériel; yet the crippling disadvantages involved in absolute dependence on the northern product compelled them to give their own resources a thorough trial. The search for French-grown masts began, therefore, as a quest for resources whose qualitative excellence was confidently assumed, but domestic exploitations amounted, eventually, to the extraction of pieces which were rarely if ever excellent, and whose serviceable mediocrity was attractive only on grounds of ease of acquisition and low cost. When initiated under Colbert's auspices, the search focused on 2

Colbert, III, pt. I, 256, 308-9; Mémain, La Marine de guerre, 619 seq. ME 113 (Rochefort) fol. 5.

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the forests of Auvergne, Provence, and the Pyrenees. An early survey of Auvergne revealed vast resources on which the navy could draw.4 A contract was signed in 1662 for deliveries from Provence, and surveys made in Pyrenean forests in 1666 were followed by contracts in 1668-9.5 But the actual extraction of domestic masts developed slowly and French naval demands were so far from being satisfied in 1669 that the Compagnie du Nord was chartered with a twenty-year guarantee from the navy to buy all timber and masts the Compagnie could bring from the north.6 Northern masts and stores, imported by this merchant company, were supposed to serve until the bottlenecks in domestic exploitations were broken. Meanwhile, Colbert's quest had led across the Atlantic. He dispatched the commissaire Gaudais to Canada to look for masting trees, and Gaudais' report was favourable.7 Several years later, Jean Talon, newly appointed intendant of New France and a servant in Colbert's image, further encouraged the minister with glowing reports on Canadian forests.8 He gave assurances that, from all appearances, New France possessed "very good masts," and timber and plank as well;9 when the forests of France are depleted, he said, "the forests of this country will furnish His Majesty."10 Colbert, "overjoyed," as he said, at the prospect of new resources for the navy, dispatched inspectors and a work party from Rochefort to survey Canadian forests and undertake some cuts. He sent orders that the greatest possible quantity of masts and timber was to be prepared, and during the winter of 1666-7 the party, newly arrived from France and accompanied by Talon himself, inspected forests bordering the lower St. Lawrence. Two cargoes of small masts and spars were shipped to France the following spring, but the promise 4 3 B 5 (Marine) Report of Georges Courtin on Auvergne forests (1665), fol. 491. ^Mérnain, La Marine de guerre^ 617—18; Colbert, III, pt. I, 67—9. G 7 B 370 (Marine) "Déclaration du Roy Portant Etablissement d'un Compagnie du Nord" (1669). 7 Fauteux, I, 222-3. As early as 1632 a cargo of timber had been brought to France from Canada. Ibid., I, 171, 227; II, 309. SIbid., I, 222-4, 227; II, 309. Even before leaving for Canada, Talon wrote from La Rochelle concerning possible exploitations. C 11 A. 2 (Colonies) fols. 135-6. Initially, both Colbert and Talon were much interested in Canadian and Acadian oak for the construction of vessels in Canada. Ibid., fols. 152, 203; Chapáis, 90, 144-6, 280. 9 C 11 A. 2 (Colonies) fol. 309. wibid., fols. 203, 309-10.

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of Canadian forests did not, for Colbert and Talon, become a reality. Exploitations were allowed to lapse in the early 1670's and appear not to have been revived until after Colbert's death. Meanwhile, the expansion of domestic production was being pushed with impatient fervour, particularly in Auvergne and the Pyrenees, for the aggressive designs of the Grand Monarch and the economic offensive against the Dutch were leading straight to war. In 1665 a certain Sieur de Sainte-Colombe, director of the newly formed Compagnie des Pyrenees was seeking masts in the southern mountains, and the next year Colbert was delighted to learn that the entrepreneur " 'had succeeded in spite of difficulties. . . . 60 masts are en route for Rochefort.3 "n Two years later the Sieur de Froidour was sent on his notable mission of forest reformation in the Pyrenees, with express orders to co-operate with the entrepreneur there making cuts. Contracts were signed in 1670 for the extraction of 900 domestic masts, 600 from the Pyrenees and 300 from Auvergne, all for delivery in 1671.12 In the next year a contractor signed for the exploitation of 3,000 Auvergne masts of the largest size for delivery at the rate of 300 a year.13 From 1674 until the Peace of Nimwegen (1678) France depended heavily on her own forests for masts. The war years were, in effect, an experimental period during which the little-known qualities of domestic masts were revealed and compared to the known qualities of those from tliL north. As early as 1670, optimism concerning the quality of French masts had begun to fade,14 and experience during the war disclosed an unmistakable and discouraging propensity among certain French masts to dry quickly, lost flexibility, become brittle, and in the large sizes, which necessarily came from old trees, to rot at the heart. The bad quality of masts from Auvergne, which provided the largest ones, caused a great stir during the war and in 1675 11

Quoted in Huffcl, Economie forestière, III, 203. Mémain, La Marine de guerre, 619. i3Colbert, IV, 256-7. 14 A "Mémoire à Monseigneur Colbert," dated 1670 and written in guarded tones that would not offend the minister, suggested that there were "differences" between French and northern masts: those from the Pyrenees were described as slightly heavier and "a little more knotty." B3 9 (Marine) fols. 483-4. Master carpenters and other port officials appear to have been only lukewarm to Colbert's schemes of substituting domestic for northern masts. Mémain, La Marine de guerre, 309. 12

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occasioned a thorough investigation and purge of the inspectors.15 Writing to his father in 1680, after the wartime "test period" was over, Seignelay declared that Auvergne masts were "of very bad quality, sapless and dry; they infallibly rot at the heart in less than a year," he said.16 Apparently his opinion was shared by others; before 1680 the reputation of Auvergne masts was so bad that their exploitation was discontinued, a decision which Seignelay declared was "very apropos."17 Masts from other provinces likewise gave rise to disappointment. As early as 1665 masting trees from Provence were judged useless for the navy.18 Of all domestic masts, those of the Pyrenees appeared to be best, but even they were deemed inferior to the best imports from northern Europe. Those from Goteborg, said Seignelay, "are constantly better than those of the Pyrenees."19 The adverse judgments rendered on French-grown masting trees in the Colbert epoch were confirmed by the well-founded opinions of successive generations of naval administrators down to the end of the old régime. But pressing need, and the fact that the much less expensive domestic product was often judged to be of usable quality, helped to sustain the long and persistent search for domestic substitutes for northern importations. Late in the seventeenth century, discouragement and difficulty with both Baltic and domestic supplies were responsible for new attempts to obtain masts from Canada. But there were many formidable obstacles. Louis XIV, lukewarm to his overseas empire in North America, was reluctant to accept the economic burdens of distant dependencies wrhich, as it must have seemed, could contribute little to and indeed detracted from the achievement of his wide-reaching continental European aims. The French state, as will be seen, was unwilling to foster exploitations in New France with reasonably ample men, money, and confidence. Quite aside from considerations of policy, there were various other difficulties. The small lumbering industry in New France subsisted primarily for the satisfaction of colonial needs. The white inhabitants of the colony were scattered and few in number; their interests focused on isColbert, III, pt. I, 308-9, 533; Mémain, La Marine de guerre, 624-5. i«G. 184 (Marine) Seignelay to Colbert, 9 May 1680.

nibid.

3SB3 5 (Marine) fol. 298. *9G. 184 (Marine) Seignelay to Colbert, 9 May 1680.

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agriculture and, like those of their managers, on the trade in furs and the salvation of Indian souls. Pacification of the savages was an essential but crippling drain on their limited resources and energies, and the drain was increased by involvements with the neighbouring English and preoccupation with the construction of costly fortifications. Roads were nearly non-existent, so masts could only be cut in forests closely bordering the rivers. The Atlantic was the greatest barrier of all. Very little commercial shipping touched at far-off Canada; the annual shipments of provisions from France were usually carried in a few vessels, sometimes by only one or two in the seventeenth century, and they could not carry enough masts on their return passage to relieve French dockyards from dependence on northern Europe. But Talon's reports in the 1660's had been encouraging, and the shipments of masts and plank actually received during his intendancy, though small in quantity, had been of satisfactory quality. It was hoped that a small investment in the exploitation of Canadian forests would eventually bring a large return. An expedition was sent in 1684 to survey forests and begin exploitations. Some large masts were cut by this mission in the winter of 1684-5, and shipped to France the following spring.20 New surveys were made two years later, and the favourable report led the minister to ask certain merchants of La Rochelle to undertake the transport of Canadian masts when they became available.21 A few masts were embarked in Canada in 1689, but the ship was wrecked en route to France.22 In 1690 a Quebec merchant and his associate at La Rochelle proposed to exploit Canadian masts, deal, and plank for the navy. Pyrenees masts, said these merchant salesmen, do not approach " 'either the strength or quality of our masts of New France,5 " which come at lower cost.23 In the eyes of naval officials, this was sales-talk, not fact. Entrepreneurs seeking naval contracts, and Canadian intendants and governors as well, frequently tended to maximize the possibilities of new projects in long-range terms and to minimize the immediate costs and difficulties, with a view to overcoming the usual ministerial caution and parsimony. In this 20G 11 A. 6 (Colonies) fols. 467-8; Fauteux, I, 179. 2iC 11 A. 11 (Colonies) fol. 139; Fauteux, I, 180. 22C 11 A. 11 (Colonies) fol. 139.

sspauteux, I, 182.

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case, as usual, the ministry was sceptical. Another mission of inspection was sent in 1691; the report was very favourable on the red pines found at Ile aux Coudres, Baie St. Paul, and at La Malbaie, where the "salesmen" entrepreneurs had made cuts.24 The merchants informed the navy in 1692 that they had accumulated "a great number of planks and masts for ships"; but as yet they had no contract and could not, it seems, obtain satisfactory shipping to send their stores to France. Finally, in 1693, on the insistence of Champigny, then Intendant of New France, the navy purchased the Canadian masts and plank that had been prepared. The minister agreed, in rather miserly fashion, to spend 8,000 livres a year for Canadian masts.25 If we use Canadian masts, the Intendant said, "the forests of the realm will not be depopulated and resort need not be had to those of Norway."26 There was little justification for expecting so much from the 8,000 livres the minister agreed to spend;27 nor was the Intendant justified, apparently, in his favourable opinion of the quality of the masts themselves.28 Five ships embarked masts and other stores in Canada in 1693, and 150 masts and several thousand spars were left for shipment the following May.29 But "when the first shipment reached La Rochelle, the masts were found to be of mediocre quality."30 Another large shipment arrived at Rochefort the following year, but the minister was dissatisfied on grounds of cost. Eleven thousand livres, he said, was a considerable sum to pay for 100 Canadian masts and, moreover, their cost exceeded by 3,000 livres the expenditure he had agreed to make in Canada.31 Notwithstanding these complaints on grounds of cost and quality, exploitations were continued, and attempts were made to improve the quality by sampling trees in various localities. In 1698, when 86 Canadian masts were sent to Rochefort, the accompanying letter explained that the masts were taken from the Trois Rivières area and they were of "better quality than those provided by Baie St. Paul."32 24

C 11 A. 12 (Colonies) fol. 86. sspauteux, I, 185-7. G 11 A. 12 (Colonies) fol. 265. If spent in the northern market, 8,000 livres would scarcely have sufficed for 6 or 7 masts of the larger sizes. 28 They were, he said, of excellent quality, "much better than those of France, less knotty, taller, and very straight." C 11 A. 12 (Colonies) fol. 265. 29/Wd. SOCole, French Mercantilism, 66. 32 3i/&í¿, 66; Fauteux, I, 186-7. C 11 A. 16 (Colonies) fol. 115. 2G 27

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Masting trees were abundant and cheap in Canada, but their exploitation required the employment of local labour for which wages were notoriously high. Moreover, trained and salaried personnel were needed to survey the forests and supervise the timber cuts. These expensive services, plus transatlantic shipment, added greatly to exploitation costs, and were a subject of continual complaint by the ministry. In 1697 the minister called for economy in Canadian exploitations, but in 1698 expenditures again exceeded the annual grant of 8,000 livres by 50 per cent.33 Worse still, some of the masts proved unsatisfactory; it was said, in fact, that the shipments from Canada gave "but little satisfaction; . . . the masts, which are very badly prepared, come at higher cost than those of the Pyrenees."34 Meanwhile, a party had been sent to survey Acadian forests and when cuts began early in 1699, orders were given that no further exploitations be made in Canada.35 The Canadian masts already cut and awaiting shipment were sent to Rochefort during 1699. Curiously, the excellence of their quality produced a revival of Canadian cuts the following spring.36 But the reputation of Canadian masts as substitutes for those from other sources was by no means secure. In December 1701, the intendant at Rochefort (Bégon) observed that "up to the present we have taken no timber from Canada, only masts. . . . Their quality is very good but they are badly proportioned. . . . I was much comforted when this year's cargo was sent to Brest."37 Bcgon went on to say that two flûtes had just arrived with cargoes of Acadian masts, "which I have not yet inspected, but the officers who command these flûtes have assured me that they are infinitely better than those of Quebec."38 During the long period of war, sporadic shipments were received from both Canada and Acadia until 1708.39 The loss of Acadia 33/Md., fols. 115-16. 34Fauteux, I, 189. ^Ibid., I, 188-9. 36C 11 A. 18 (Colonies) fols. 13, 97. Both Canadian and Acadian exploitations were strongly recommended by the Conseil de Commerce in 1701. F10 256 (Arch Nat) "Mémoire des Députez au Conseil de Commerce" (1701). 37 Bégon, II, 94. Bégon added that "the masts of Canada have been badly chosen," a fact explicable, according to Fauteux, by the death of the master mastman directing cuts. Fauteux, I, 186-7. 38 Begon, II, 94; 5E2 13 (Rochefort) Report on Acadian masts, 9 January 1702. 39 A small shipment of Acadian masts arrived as late as 1705, with some plank arriving in 1707. 5E2 14 (Rochefort) "Estât de la Recept" (July 1705).

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to the English by conquest in 1710, confirmed at Utrecht, restricted future exploitations to Canada. After the war, instructions were sent to the governor and intendant to invigorate the production of Canadian stores for the navy.40 The effort actually made in Canada focused on the production of deal and plank, and on the extraction of pitch and tar from resinous trees; encouragement, in the form of bounties, was also given to the production of hemp.41 Numerous shipments of these products were made after 1718, but very few masts were sent to France.42 In 1719 a "large cargo" of 60 was dispatched along with a variety of other naval matériel, and a few more dribbled to French dockyards in the 1720's.43 During these years the shipping problem was the most persistent and damaging obstacle to the traffic. Masts and other stores prepared during the winter of 1713-14 were not sent promptly to France because shipping was not available;44 some masts cut in 1712 were not sent to France until 1719.45 Shipping difficulties were aggravated by negligence and poor liaison between authorities in France and Canada. Sometimes a ship arrived in the colony to embark masts only to find that none had been prepared.46 Intendants in Canada repeatedly insisted on the need for regularity in shipment and the necessity of sending large vessels properly equipped, but such messages were ignored with astonishing frequency. The Bretonne, for example, which arrived in 1692, could not load the large masts that awaited shipment.47 Lack of transportation made it impossible for many entrepreneurs to fulfil their contracts, and discouraged several who wanted to exploit masts.48 4°C 11 A. 36 (Colonies) fols. 47-50, 165. 41 Introduced in Canada about 1720, hemp production increased from 200 livres in 1722 to 1,644 livres in 1723, 5,799 in 1724 and 42,200 in 1727. C 11 A. 49 (Colonies) fol. 281; C 11 A. 50 (Colonies) fol. 422 seq.; C 11 A. 51 (Colonies) fols. 248-9. 42 Shipments of Canadian oak plank, pine plank, and pitch tar were sent to France in 1716, and annually from 1719 to 1723. C 11 A. 53 (Colonies) fols. 91-103; 5E2 15 (Rochefort) "Mémoire par M. l'Intendant" (1723) and "Mémoire sur la fourniture de trois ans" (1723). 43C 11 A. 53 (Colonies) fols. 98, 100; 5E2 15 (Rochefort) "Estât de Mâts . . . de Québec" (1721); Fauteux, I, 198-9. 44C 11 A. 36 (Colonies) fols. 30-1. 45C 11 A. 41 (Colonies) fol. 111; Fauteux, I, 198-9. 46C 11 A. 36 (Colonies) fols. 31-2; C 11 A. 49 (Colonies) fol. 134. 47C 11 A. 12 (Colonies) fol. 86; Fauteux, I, 186. ^Fauteux, I, 190.

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Ship captains considered it dangerous, particularly in the open roadstead at Baie St. Paul, to embark masts through the sabord, and sometimes they refused to do so.49 At times the problem of shipment was aggravated by ridiculous circumstances. Masts cut in the winter of 1713-14 by the Governor of Montreal, who held several naval contracts, awaited shipment through 1714-15; he made complaints, and a vessel was finally sent in 1716, but instead of going to Canada it went to Ile Royale, where no naval stores were ready for shipment. A cargo of plank was hastily amassed, but it was found that the particular ship that had been sent was so constructed that it could not even load plank: "M. de Vauton was obliged to saw them down to 22 feet in length, thus making them defective.5550 In 1719 complaints concerning the irregular arrival of cargo ships brought a promise from the Conseil de la Marine that a flute would thereafter be sent each year,51 but the hull design of the ship that was sent the very next year, 1720, made it impossible for her to embark any considerable quantity of masts.52 The early 17205s produced yet another source of serious trouble. Between 1720 and 1723 the quality of the masts and timber reaching France from Canada was uneven, and generally unsatisfactory. Long exposure during the waiting period in Canada accelerated the normal development of cracks, brittleness, and rot, and generally shortened the useful life of the masts. When a small shipment arrived on the Chameau in 1720, some of the pieces were "of good and sound quality,'5 but more than half were reduced in value because they had had to wait 8 years for shipment to France.53 In 1723, however, those arriving were sound and generally acceptable, and in one shipment of 24 received at Rochefort, only 1 was rejected by the port authorities. But the inspectors did repeat their earlier complaints that the Canadian imports were badly sawn and 49 C 11 A. 36 (Colonies) fols. 33-4; C 11 A. 41 (Colonies) fols. 31-3; C 11 A. 42 (Colonies) fols. 41-2. 50C 11 A. 36 (Colonies) fol. 31. 51 C 11 A. 41 (Colonies) fol. 31. In 1727 it was urged that 3 flûtes be sent annually. Fauteux, I, 203-4. 52 The ship also arrived too late in the season to be loaded safely, and because of bad weather the ship's officers refused to embark all the cargo the vessel could take. C 11 A. 42 (Colonies) fols. 41-3. 535E2 15 (Rochefort) "Estât de Mâts et Bois de Construction . . . de Québec" (1721); G 11 A. 41 (Colonies) fol. 111. Some of the masts in the cargo had been cut in 1712.

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54

ill-proportioned, indicating that those responsible for the choice and cuts of trees in the colony were not doing their job satisfactorily. The ministry was becoming dissatisfied with Canadian imports. Exploitations were halted pending measures to improve their quality. Two inspectors were sent to Canada in 1724 to supervise cuts and to prospect for new resources.55 For several years these inspectors visited the sites of earlier lumbering operations and surveyed untapped forests. Attention was first given to several localities on the north bank of the St. Lawrence, about 50 miles down river from Quebec, where masts and plank had already been cut. At He aux Coudres and Eboulement, very little remained; the trees at Cap à l'Aigle were " 'good for nothing.' "5G However, forests near Baie St. Paul, notwithstanding a long succession of earlier cuts dating back to 1685, could provide large pine which the inspector believed were of excellent quality, and 60 masts were cut by the party and placed in the near-by basin.57 In the summer of 1725 the inspectors moved farther down the St. Lawrence and thence up the Saguenay and its tributaries to the Chicoutimi region, where splendid white pine, towering to heights of 80 feet, stood close to the river. The inspectors strongly recommended exploitations in that region, in spite of the mosquitoes. The next year, 1726, forests at Baie de Gaspé and Baie de Chaleur were visited and "a considerable stand of fine pine and épinette proper for masts" was found.58 Moving up the St. Lawrence from Quebec in 1727, one of the inspectors located good white and red pine on the Richelieu near Montreal; two large specimens were cut.59 The Governor and Intendant of Canada emphasized the vital importance of this tour of inspection when they pointed to the chief inspector's responsibility "to establish and sustain the reputation of Canadian forests."60 If one were to judge only from their formal 5*5E2 15 (Rochefort) "Estât des Mâts, Mâtereaux et Esparres" (June 1723) and "Estât des Mâts" (October 1723). Planks and deal arriving in 1723 were severely criticized for poor workmanship. "Mémoire pour M. l'Intendant sur les Bois de Canada et de l'Isle Royale" (1723). 55C 11 A. 46 (Colonies) fol. 11; Fauteux, l, 200-1. 56Fauteux, I, 201. Mlbid., 200-1. 58C 11 A. 48 (Colonies) fols. 60-1; Fauteux, I, 202-3. 59 Fauteux, I, 204. 60C 11 A. 49 (Colonies) fol. 19.

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reports, one would be certain that the inspectors executed this responsibility well. But the reports, generally favourable, were completely repudiated by the rottenness of the masts actually cut, which were deemed so defective they were not even embarked on the large flute sent in 1727 to take them to France.61 At about the same time a shipment of masts arrived in France from Ile Royale "which were no better than those of Canada."62 This tour of inspection did much to destroy the already shaky reputation of Canadian masts, and helped to dissuade the ministry from resuming exploitations. Purchases of defective matériel, particularly when large financial losses were involved, usually called for investigation and drastic action by the ministry. In Canada both the Governor and the Intendant blamed the poor quality of the cuts, not on the forests, but on the incompetence of the persons who "have up to now exploited the forests."63 "The harvest is ample," they said; but they explained that the trees had been cut regardless of the season and too little attention had been given to their processing and preservation. These irregularities, it was affirmed in Canada, were "the cause of complaint."64 In France, however, the minister was hard-pressed by the Fleury administration for funds, and more concerned about the magnitude of costs during the unsuccessful three-year tour of inspection than with the problem of affixing responsibility either on the forests or the individuals involved in their exploitation. The President of the Conseil de la Marine wrote to Canada in 1727, saying that the examination of Canadian resources had cost " '16 thousand livres in pure loss,5 " and stating flatly that " 'His Majesty has given no indication that he intends to make others [other grants] for a long time to come.5 "65 The matter was not allowed to rest at that. Hocquart, Intendant in Canada, felt that the opinions prevailing in France concerning colonial masts were as ill-founded as they were unjust. Canadian forests offered valuable substitutes for northern masts which he believed the navy should not overlook.66 In order to induce a revival of exploitations, Hocquart sent a small shipment of masts to Rochefort in 1731, but they received a chilly reception. They were rejected as defective by naval inspectors, and sold to merchants at La «i/«¿, fols. 18, 23; Fauteux, I, 210. 63G 11 A. 49 (Colonies) fols. 18-19. 65Quoted by Fauteux, I, 209-10. 66C 11 A. 55 (Colonies) fols. 218, 221, 224, 228.

62

Fauteux, I, 210. **Ibid.

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Rochelle; the masts were, it was said, "without sap and excessively dry."67 There was, however, some difference of opinion on their quality. The actual inspection of the shipment did not, the minister himself observed, make it clear that they were "absolutely bad."68 Nevertheless, Maurepas, in a letter to the Intendant, "remained firm in his decision that he must not send any more masts from Canada."69 Hocquart accepted this decision under protest, and could not refrain from calling the minister's attention to the fact that Canadian masts were used by "all the ships in this colony." He added that "the seas are rough [here in North American waters] and I have yet to see, since my arrival, any breakage or dismasting."70 Yet the decision stood in spite of Hocquart's protests. After 1731 the French employed Canadian masts in the construction of a few naval vessels that were built in Canada, but did not again import them for the use of the navy.71 The growth of opposition to Canadian masts, and the decision of the minister to halt their importation in 1731 can be largely explained by the heavy financial losses which their exploitation seemed to necessitate. The ministry was then under great pressure to administer the naval service within the limits of a very restrictive Fleury budget. Pressure on the budget made economy bulk large as a factor in administration ; the times were not propitious for expenditure on enterprises of uncertain fruitfulness. Since the money spent in Canada often produced unsatisfactory masts at considerable cost Wlbid.; G 11 A. 58 (Colonies) fol. I l ; Fauteux, I, 210-11. 1E 116 (Rochefort) letters of Maurepas to Beauharnais, 1-13 January and 3 February 1732, fols. 1, 19-20, 55-6. Even before the newly arrived shipment had been inspected, the Intendant Beauharnais expressed the opinion that they would "rot in a little time." e^Fauteux, I, 211. ™C 11 A. 58 (Colonies) fol. 11; Fauteux, I, 211. 71 After 1731 the importation of Canadian oak timber and plank continued on a modest scale for both naval and commercial purposes. Canadian masts were used in commercial shipbuilding and in the growing colonial shipbuilding industry which built a number of small fighting ships for the navy, particularly after 1740. By 1752 over 200 thousand livres a year was being spent for naval constructions in Canada, and masts were being sought as far in the interior as Lake Champlain for use in Canadian shipyards. Naval constructions in Canada proved very costly, however, and in several important instances the vessels were constructed of bad timber. In 1750 the navy decided to halt Canadian constructions when the vessels already planned and those on the ways were finished. A revival of mast importations was planned in 1754, but war intervened before shipments to France got under way. C 11 A. 98 (Colonies) fol. 311; C 11 E. 11 (Colonies) fols. 109, 119, 121, 127; Shortt, II, 185, 985; Fauteux, I. 211-19, 243-81; II, 218. 68

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and loss, it was preferable to rely on domestic masts or on those imported from the northern market, where the relationship between cost and quality was believed to be more stable. The rotten samples sent by the inspectors and the bad shipment from Ile Royale coincided with these circumstances to justify halting North American imports. The fact that the masts imported by the French from Canada were often of unsatisfactory quality is less easily explained. Excellent masts from Canadian forests gave splendid service in the British navy over a long period after Canada was lost to France in 1763. Since the French had an opportunity to tap virgin resources, which were certainly more nearly intact before 1731 than after 1763, it is at first sight difficult to understand why they found the quality of Canadian forests unsatisfactory. Like the English, they cut both red and white pine for masts and spars.72 It is doubtful whether French shipbuilders in the 1720's were more fastidious than their later-day English rivals. The paradox can be explained in part, perhaps, by the fact that French exploitations focused, except for the brief dabbling in Acadia, on forests closely bordering the St. Lawrence not far from Quebec,73 where the labour supply was relatively large and costs were comparatively low, but also where the forests were less well preserved from the inroads of sawmills and other users. The later English cuts were concentrated in sparsely settled New Brunswick and, after 1804, in Upper Canada.74 The relatively narrow focus of French exploitations, naval and other, probably occasioned some deterioration in the quality of readily accessible stands of trees and hence in the quality of shipments to France.75 Long delays in Canada before shipment appear to have been more directly connected with the unsatisfactory quality. When 72 The French had the very same opinion of the comparative merits of Canadian red and white pine as the British had later. G 11 A. 46 (Colonies) fols. 10-13; Albion, 30-1, 346. 73 Although French inspectors roved farther afield, actual mast exploitations in the period were largely concentrated in the region down river from Quebec, as at Baie St. Paul and at La Malbaie. 74 Albion, 346-58 passim. 75 The rotten masts cut by the inspectors in the winter of 1724-5 appear to have been taken either from Baie St. Paul or from La Malbaie. In both these localities, many earlier cuts had been made, and sawmills had been established at an early date (Baie St. Paul 1685 and La Malbaie 1687), and their continual activity must certainly have made large inroads on accessible masting trees. Girard, 742 seq.

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trees were felled and had to wait one or two years, or even longer, for shipment, they were exposed to conditions which could be very damaging. Fincham has pointed out that "timber which contains little resin, as the Norway spruce and the timber obtained from Canada . . . requires to be constantly under water, or sheltered from the influence of variable atmospheres. For in this kind of timber, constant changes of temperature produce more readily, and in greater degree than in any other, the alternate motion of the fibre, which not only assists the evaporation of those particles which constitute the adhesiveness of its fibre . . . but produce fermentation and destroy its durability."76 Since there were no hangars for the protective storage of trees cut and prepared for shipment in Canada in the early eighteenth century, it appears likely that exposure was one cause for the poor quality of those reaching France. But it must be recalled that there were several varieties of complaint. Both Governor Eeauharnais and Intendant Dupuy, in 1727, pointed the finger of guilt at persons engaged in the actual exploitation of trees: "The irregularity with which the trees have, up to the present, been exploited, \vithout observing either the moons or the seasons, the slight attention given to peeling the trees properly, to drying them, and to storing them in such fashion that they can dry without rotting, can be regarded as the cause of the complaints."77 Some of the complaints concerning quality were directed, not at the qualities of the several varieties of pine received, but at the badly sawn and ill-proportioned masts delivered.78 These faults can be attributed only to ignorance of the navy's requirements on the part of Canadian entrepreneurs, and to the inefficiency or incompetence of a few naval officials who supervised cuts in Canada and the preparation of the trees as masts. It can be added that naval officials in Canada also share, with their over-cautious and economy-minded superiors in France, in the general responsibility for keeping the naval service both ill-informed and misinformed concerning the over-all value of Canadian forests as a source of supply. Had the French, instead of discontinuing importations, undertaken to expand their Canadian exploitations, the results could ^Fincham, Treatise on Mastinç Ships (1843), 176-7. Cf. Garraud, 155-6. 7TG 11 A. 49 (Colonies) fols. Í8-19. 78 5E2 15 (Rochefort) "Mémoire pour L'Intendant" (1723) and the "Estats des Mâts." February 1721, June and October 1723; Bégon, II, 94; Fauteux, I, 186-7.

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certainly have been as fruitful for them as later Canadian cuts were for Britain. The British, during two full centuries after 1652, drew on colonial resources in New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick, and the Upper St. Lawrence in that succession,79 but France, as will be seen, overlooked the potentialities of North American forests, choosing to rely almost entirely on domestic masts as substitutes for importations from the Baltic. Of the three major naval yards, Toulon depended most heavily on domestic sources for masts. The forests of Dauphiné probably furnished most of the masts used in constructions there during the last two decades of the seventeeth century, and in 1700, the forests of that province, with those of the Pyrenees and Franche Comté, still provided Toulon with more than four-fifths.80 During the halfcentury after 1700, however, reduction in the extent of French forests and the unsatisfactory quality of domestic masts gradually increased the demand for importations from the Baltic. As early as 1713, accessible forests in Dauphiné had been depleted to such an extent that imports from Savoy and the Baltic were deemed essential to husband the resources that remained.81 But in the 1720's attention again turned to domestic sources. New surveys in Dauphiné revealed valuable trees, particularly in the forêt de la petite vache where the navy subsequently made extensive cuts. The masts then cut appeared to be of excellent quality, and were in fact far superior to some delivered at the same time from FrancheComté, but they proved to be short-lived, with a durability of 6 years or less, "not comparable to those of the north."82 Lack of durability discouraged but did not prevent further domestic exploitations. There was hope that new cuts would produce better masts, hope justified by the fact that the same variety of tree grown in different localities in the same province, or even 79

Albion, chaps, vi, ix. «OIL 418 (Toulon) "Inventaire" (1700); B* 139 (Marine) fol. 408; Bi 71 (Marine) fol. 74; Brun, I, 150. Choice pieces, such as the cores of main and mizzenmasts in vessels of the first three ranks, appear to have been imported of necessity even in the seventeenth century. B3 51 (Marine) fols. 521-4. 81 Brun, I, 150. Colbert referred, in 1674, to the use then being made of Savoyard masts. Colbert, III, pt. I, 529. A few pieces of very mediocre quality were delivered to the navy from Savoy in 1685-6. B3 51 (Marine) fols. 521-3; D3 10 (Marine) fols. 8, 9, 18, 22-3. Some of the Savoyard sticks acquired during the war, after 1706, and in the post-war years, were also of poor quality. Most were rejected and the entrepreneur was ruined. B3 139 (Marine) fols. 110-11, 138-40, 165, 255-6, 282-3; B3 217 (Marine) fols. 169-77. 82Brun, I, 198, 236.

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in different parts of the same forest, often produced masts of very different quality. Furthermore, economy and ease of acquisition were particularly strong arguments for using the domestic product at Toulon, where the difference in cost between domestic and foreign masts was enormous, reflecting not only high Baltic prices but also the cost of ocean shipment, which sometimes exceeded 2,000 livres apiece for masts whose initial cost was around 1,500 livres.83 In the 1740's some masts from Dauphiné and a few from Nice were employed at Toulon, but large quantities of northern masts, spars, and fir plank were becoming essential. After the middle of the century, Dauphiné, like Provence and FrancheComté, supplied only small masts and spars for Toulon; such supplies were of small consequence. Several shipments of very bad masts came from Alsace.84 Of great importance were the Pyrenees masts sent from Bayonne to Toulon in the 1760's. Between 1766 and 1770, one-third, perhaps one-half of Toulon's supplies were drawn from domestic sources, principally from the Pyrenees.85 But like earlier deliveries, they were subject to rapid decay, and the successive procès verbaux levied against them gradually reduced their peacetime employment to practically nil.86 In the later years of the old régime Toulon used a few masts from Corsica, but became largely dependent on masts from the Baltic and Black Sea markets. At Brest and Rochefort, as at Toulon, the dual objects of economy and self-sufficiency encouraged the exploitation of domestic masts. But for them the achievement of these two objects was made especially difficult by the poor quality of Auvergne masts and by the heavy investments required to get the more desirable Pyrenees masts and spars from their mountain fastness to the coast. Although Auvergne masts had been unequivocally condemned in the Colbert period, that lesson in experience was overlooked from time to time in the eighteenth century, usually under the pressure 83 3 D 16 (Marine) "Tableau du prix de chaque espèce de mâts expédiés de Riga pour Brest, Rochefort, Toulon et l'Orient" (1789). 84 In May 1775 a distraught ordonnateur at Toulon reported that 12 ships were lying in the port whose Alsacian masts had been condemned. B3 622 (Marine) fols. 249-52. 8535 4 (Marine) "Bâtiments du Roi" (1760-5); B* 71 (Marine) fols. 74, 106, 119, 132; B3 575 (Marine) fol. 124. 86 5 B 6 (Marine) "Procès Verbal de la Visite des Grands Mâts de Mizaine des Vaisseaux du Roy" (1769); D3 12 (Marine) fols. 164, 173-4; B* 71 (Marine) fol. 106; Brun, I, 490.

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of wartime need. A contract was signed for the extraction of Auvergne masts in 1706, and exploitations continued in the immediate post-war period.87 In 1718, a company was formed for the purpose, but many of the masts actually taken out were poor, having been cut from scattered stands and hence badly grained, ill-proportioned, and heavily knotted.88 But the navy, never daunted, awarded another Auvergne contract in 1739 calling for 100 masts a year for 6 years, and the contract appears to have been executed,89 notwithstanding the distinctly unfavourable judgment of Auvergne masts handed down in 1740, just one year after execution of the contract began. "To us," said the inspectors, "they appeared coarse-grained, and of a quality common to those of France; lacking masts from the north, and in case of necessity, we judge them proper for mâts d'assemblage^ Apparently the early 1740's were years of necessity. Thereafter, however, few Auvergne masts were used; they were condemned by the Conseil de la Marine at Brest in May 1782 with the opinion that they "could not be employed in any case."91 In Pyrenees forests, the most important domestic source of masts for dockyards on the Atlantic seaboard, engineering problems and the cost of exploitations often deterred entrepreneurs and sometimes cancelled the saving expected when domestic masts were employed. The forests reached by the new road and river routes opened in the Colbert period, for example, were exhausted in only a few years. Large cuts were made in subsequent years, but by 1693 accessible forests in many localities were "almost entirely dégradées by cuts made for the king."92 Surveys revealed that extensive resources remained, but the need for new road and river passages prevented cuts in most localities.93 Exploitations in the Pyrenees occasioned alternate encouragement and discouragement among naval officials in the eighteenth century. Hope and optimism often ran high when cuts were pro87D- 14 (Marine) fols. 9, 17-20. «SB3 420 (Marine) fol. 40; 5E2 15 (Rochefort) "Mémoire sur les Mâts d'Auvergne et à quoy ils sont propres" (1723). SOIE 135 (Rochefort) fols. 141, 178; 5E2 8 (Rochefort) "Estât des Mâts d'Auvergne de la forêt de Gravières" (1743) ; B3 391 (Marine) fol. 308. M5E2 18 (Rochefort) "Estrait du Procès Verbal du 7e septembre 1740." 9iD3 16 (Marine) letter signed "Dubois," dated 23 January 1786. «2D3 11 (Marine) fol. 33. 93 In 1686 the largest and most valuable masts, those more than 80 feet in length, could not be brought down by water to Bayonne because the river locks

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posed and planned, only to be dampened when operations in the field actually began. In the 1720's the Pyreneans obstructed exploitations as usual; they did not ambush the entrepreneur and his workers as they had back in 1671, but they did move to other valleys and to Spain to avoid the exactions incident to naval exploitations. Garrison soldiers had to be brought in from St. Jean and Navarrenx in 1722-3 to work on the roads in their stead.94 Yet the forests thus opened left much to be desired; many trees were u dead at the top, knotty, charged with sap . . . reddish at the heart, and very spongy."95 Following complaints concerning the quality of the masts extracted and shipped down from the forests, an inspector was sent to examine trees at the site. He reported that "those that remain appear no better in quality."96 Such masts, obtained only after long, costly difficulty, were neither desirable substitutes for those of the Baltic nor were they a bargain, even though they came at a lower price. It was probably with these facts in mind, in the years 1729-32, that Maurepas vetoed proposals that further cuts be made in the Pyrenees.97 Inspections and some cuts in the Pyrenees during the decade of the 1740's revived interest, and aroused hope of better quality from resources yet untapped, if only the transportation problems could be overcome.98 Finally, in 1758, a contract was made with a group of entrepreneurs who agreed to undertake exploitations with the help of the navy, and hopes were high.99 The entrepreneurs wrestled with the problems of extracting the masts from 1758 to 1764. While the new roads and river passages were still under construction and no masts had yet traversed them, one memoirist said there was "every hope" that "we will have nothing to import then in use would not permit their passage. B3 51 (Marine) fols. 521—4. In 1690 one promising locality could be reached only after "10 great leagues" of new roads had been built. B3 61 (Marine) fols. 189—90. The difficulties met in cuts between 1690 and 1703 are surveyed in D3 11 (Marine) fols. 1-180, including some 30 mémoires and projets on the Pyrenees, ranging from 1672 to 1703. 94 See chapter iv, pp. 55-7. 95Charbonneau, 482-3. ^Ibid. 9 ?D3 12 (Marine) fols. 32, 36; IE 116 (Rochefort) fols. 66-7. 3 °81E 145 (Rochefort) fols. 196-7; D 1 (Marine) fols. 95-100; D3 2 (Marine) fols. 220-1; D3 5 (Marine) fols. 27-30; D3 12 (Marine) fols. 44-60. "Representations were made by an entrepreneur as early as 1747, and an unsuccessful company was formed in 1748. After much procrastination between 1752 and 1757, a contract was signed with Forçade and Company in September 1758. D3 12 (Marine) fols. 86-113 passim; D3 1 (Marine) fols. 324-5; Bi 69 (Marine) fols. 68-75.

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from abroad, as far as masts are concerned."100 It was believed the navy would have "an eternal source of masts"101 whose quality would be "as good, for mâture d'assemblage, as imports from the north,"102 and of course it was anticipated that they would come at a lower price. The dual objectives, self-sufficiency and economy in procurement, seemed on the point of achievement. Bitter was the disappointment when the first deliveries from the Pyrenees were made in 1764. Not one of the 534 masts and 981 mâtereaux and spars delivered that year were fit for naval use.103 Although quality improved in many later deliveries,104 and hundreds of Pyrenees firs were used in mâture d'assemblage in the 1760's, some of those employed between 1764 and 1766 were found rotten in 1769 and 1770.105 The large quantities of fir beams, plank, and deal taken from the southern mountains during those years were of better quality and greater usefulness than the masts.106 Even so, the cost of exploitations in the Pyrenees was high in proportion to the value received. The amount it cost the navy to exploit masts in the Pyrenees from 1766 to 1768 inclusive was 1,666,700 livres107 but a memoirist calculated that their value, as against an equivalent number of Baltic imports of equivalent sizes, was only 914,944 livres.108 In 1769 the costs of exploitation were 194,600 livres but the value, using the same measure of comparison, 10037 414 (Marine) "Mémoire du Commerce avec la Russie" (1760). 101D3 12 (Marine) fol. 88. 1025. 122 (Marine) fol. 169. lOSfii 74 (Marine) fols. 179-84. 104 Of a shipment of 91 masts to Toulon in 1766. only 13 were rejected. B1 71 (Marine) fol. 106. In 1768, on 2 March and 20 September, Brest and Rochefort accepted 297 and rejected 47, though in February of that year deliveries were of bad quality. B1 74 (Marine) fol. 166. 5£2 11 (Rochefort) "Estât et Procès verbal de la visite . . . des Mâts," 19 February 1768, is extremely critical of a shipment from the Pyrenees found afflicted with heartshake, porous, brittle, etc., and "not in any way comparable" to those imported from the north. lOSfii 75 (Marine) fols. 99-101; B^ 6 (Marine) "Procès Verbal de la Visite des Grands Mâts de Mizaine des Vaisseaux du Roy" (1769). Cf. D3 12 (Marine) fol. 133-4. Many of the masts delivered between 1764 and 1766 had been cut 4 or 5 years earlier, in preparation for the anticipated opening of communications, which was long delayed. Lying exposed in the forests, they were well on in the process of decay before ever reaching the mast-ponds. Later cuts and deliveries proved somewhat more durable, but were far from being the equals of Baltic importations. B^ 627 (Marine) fols. 230-2. 106B1 72 (Marine) fol. 171; BI 74 (Marine) fols. 168, 187-94. 107B1 74 (Marine) fols. 162-4, 172, 187-94; B* 77 (Marine) fol. 24. 108 The degree of over-valuation involved, when Baltic price tags were attached to Pyrenees products, is perhaps indicated by the fact that masts

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109

was only 169,342 livres. Thus between 1766 and 1769 poor and mediocre masts and fir timber from the Pyrenees cost the navy at least 275 thousand livres more than northern masts and timber of better quality and comparable size would have cost.110 The experience of the 1760's left little room for confidence in the quality of Pyrenees masts; nevertheless cuts continued, though on a smaller scale. New expenditures in the Pyrenees were apparently intended to increase the exploitation of fir timber and to keep open a source of masts which could serve when the navy's needs were not satisfied by northern importations. In the years of tension and war that followed, new cuts of masts were made. As usual, new road and water communications had to be provided before the trees could be brought out, and expenditures in the Pyrenees stood at about 100 thousand livres annually in the years 1770-5, and climbed to 180 thousand in the naval estimates of 1776.m The usual difficulties with quality also plagued the navy after 1770. At Toulon, for example, where Pyrenees masts had been condemned in 1769, new procès verbaux were issued against them in 1773 and 1780.112 The shortage of masts during the war years, 1778-83, made it necessary to use many Pyrenees sticks that would otherwise have been rejected, and after the war official opinion at the dockyards was nearly unanimous in opposing further cuts. The principal difficulty, which had been encountered time and again since the seventeenth century, was still the lack of durability which from Dauphiné were delivered at Toulon for about one-fourth the cost of northern masts, and those from Auvergne reached Rochefort at about one-sixth the cost. D3 5 (Marine) fol. 29; D» 7 (Marine) fols. 16, 48-51, 67; D3 8 (Marine) fols. 6, 48, 50-1, 100. 10931 75 (Marine) fols. 99-101. The northern prices tagged to Pyrenees masts were, in this instance, exceptionally high, even as northern prices went. Cf. D3 5 (Marine) fol. 29. 110 These figures do not take account of the navy's investment of 500 thousand livres in exploitations between 1758 and 1765, which should figure as part of the costs. It can be surmised that Pyrenees masts and timber used in the 1760's cost the navy close to 500 thousand livres more than comparable northern imports would have cost. 1HE. 206 (Marine) "Mémoire sur les Dépenses de la Marine" (1770 or 1771?); Bi 77 (Marine) fols. 24-5; B5 9 (Marine) "Bordeaux et Bayonne" (1774); B5 10 (Marine) "Tableau général de la Situation de la Marine (1 January 1775) and "Mémoire sur les dépenses variables de la Marine pour 1776" (1775). The dockyards requested 1,200 thousand livres in northern masts and spars in 1776. On road problems of the 1770's: B1 79 (Marine) fols. 212-20; B1 82 (Marine) fols. 176, 197, and the remarkable work of Leroy, 112 38-45. 68, 120, with many plates. D3 12 (Marine) fol. 164.

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characterized Pyrenees fir after felling. It was suggested in 1783 that soaking in oil might help to remedy this serious deficiency.113 In the larger pieces, brittleness set in after only 3 or 4 years of use, and rendered Pyrenees fir acceptable only for spars, or for service in and around the naval yards. In retrospect, a memoirist observed in 1788 that "trees from the Pyrenees with which the dockyards of the king have been supplied during the last 30 years have always been disliked at the ports; it is only with repugnance that they are used.55114 Neither economy nor self-sufficiency were achieved by using French and Canadian masting trees. In Canada, the navy let slip a splendid opportunity; in France the most was made of dubious possibilities. Responsibility for failure in the colony can be attributed to the lack of financial support given to colonial and naval enterprise by the state, though even within the limits of the funds that were made available, the navy and its Canadian contractors demonstrated astonishing ineptitude and want of determination in the face of adversities. In domestic exploitations, on the other hand, perseverance was the most obvious feature of the navy's struggle against nature; French forests offered only mediocre masts, at best, to reward the navy's long-sustained and thorough quest. The northern market was the only source of masts on which France consistently drew during the old régime. In spite of all its searches in the Pyrenees, Alsace, Auvergne, and Dauphiné, and in Savoy and Corsica and Canada, the navy never found satisfactory substitutes: they were finally shown to be undesirable on all grounds except accessibility, although intermittent gleanings from various domestic and colonial sources furnished substantial quantities of masting materials which, at times, greatly reduced dependence on the north. Quantitatively, domestic forests made a progressively smaller contribution during the last century of the old régime. Scandinavian, Polish, and Russian forests provided the bulk of supplies for the French navy and set the standard of quality by which all others were judged, and found wanting. 113D3 12 (Marine) fols. 144-9. This oiling method of preservation, known as the "American" method, was supposed to have been widely used in American shipping to preserve flexibility in masts. Several French merchant shipowners were said to have used Pyrenees masts for 12 or 15 years after they had been oiled, and even then the masts were said to be in good condition. "4/&M., fol. 149.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Northern Market in Naval Stores

ONE French naval official expressed the prevailing view in asserting that "the best [masting] trees, generally speaking, come from the coldest countries."1 Climate, of course, was but one of many factors contributing to the fine, even grain for which northern European masts were prized. Growing close together in the immense forests of Scandinavia, Russia, and Poland, trees achieved great height in proportion to girth, with few branches and thus few knots on the lower trunk; they grew straight and protected each other from the whip and sway which, in isolated trees, produced uneven grain and deformed or twisted trunks.2 Of course masts of poor quality and defective proportions were produced and sold in the northern market, most often at the German ports and Danzig, but in the experience of European shipbuilders, northern fir, particularly those marketed at the ports of the eastern Baltic, were more desirable than any other masting trees. Northern masts, which sometimes floated by river many hundreds of miles from Russian and Polish forests to the Baltic market, were precious and indeed indispensable to the maritime powers. The masts of most merchant vessels in western Europe were of northern fir. The navies imported some masts from the New World colonies, but a handful of Scandinavian and east Baltic ports were the principal sources of supply for naval and merchant shipbuilders alike. Masts of Ukrainian origin, sold at Riga, might be shipped to some Spanish West Indian navy yard for refits 1D3 3 (Marine) fol. 154. Albion, 28-31; 5E2 15 (Rochefort) "Mémoire sur Les Mâts d'Auvergne" (1723); Buffon, 143-4. 2

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of ships on distant station, or might find a place in some Venetian galley, in an English frigate, or perhaps in a French ship-of-the-line at Brest or Toulon. Equally they might be stepped in merchantmen, under any one of a score of flags. It was customary, in the eighteenth century, for naval and commercial buyers to gather from all over Europe at Riga and St. Petersburg; there they complained of high prices and haggled over the conditions of sale, but usually exhausted the annual market in masts. Until about 1670 French imports of naval masts were drawn indiscriminately from various northern ports, with little apparent preference as to their origin. Many French naval vessels were then constructed in Danish, Dutch, Swedish, and German shipyards. As to their masts, it sufficed that the ships themselves were built in northern yards where northern masts were exclusively employed. Of 119 vessels added to the French navy list between 1662 and 1668, nearly all were foreign-built.3 But their experience with ships purchased abroad in the 1660's gave the French grounds for some dissatisfaction in respect to the quality of their masts; many had to be remasted in France. Moreover, some of the masts purchased in the north and imported by the French themselves proved unsatisfactory, notably those from German ports and Danzig where northern merchants perhaps took advantage of the inexperienced French buyers to unload defective merchandise. The experience of those years generally discredited German masts and inclined the French to favour Scandinavia and Riga as sources of supply.4 The French preference for Riga masts endured to the very end of the ancien régime. Scandinavia, as a mast market, comprised only Norway and Sweden. Norwegian fir, imported from Drontheim, Bergen, Drammen, Christiana, and other ports, were much employed by the French in the 1660's and, as far as quality was concerned, earned respect. But the forests of Norway were then showing signs of serious depletion. They had supplied masts and timber to the Hanseats for centuries, and more recently Spanish, Dutch, and English demands had drastically reduced the available supplies. The metallurgical industries and the enormous demands of the Norwegian 3

Memain, La Marine de guerre, 20 (note). D3 8 (Marine) fol. 14; Colbert, III, pt. I, 294, 308-9, 420; pt. II, 55, 310, 379, 530-1, 714-15; Boissonnade et Charliat, 38-46 passim; Memain, La Marine de guerre, 617. 4

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lumbering industry, unrestrained by forest legislation or effective conservation measures, did much to ruin what remained of the forests, and to destroy the mast traffic in the last three decades of the seventeenth century.5 In the first quarter of the eighteenth, Norway still exported spars, but few Norwegian masts were on the market, and they were generally held in low esteem.6 Swedish ports prospered in the mast traffic after the middle of the seventeenth century, partly because the prostrate condition of many continental Baltic ports limited the possible sources of supply.7 Both the English and French navies then drew heavily on the Swedish market; Seignelay considered Gôteborg masts the finest available, and Colbert sought privileges in Swedish trade to facilitate buying at Gôteborg and at the "captive" Swedish port of Riga.8 But the substantial French imports from Swedish sources in the 1680's diminished greatly in the maritime war of the century's last decade. The first decades of the next century saw the dissolution of Sweden's Baltic Empire in Charles XIFs Northern War (1700-21), and in the course of that struggle, Sweden lost her the Norwegian wood industries: Bosse,, I, 33 seq., 186, 235-47, 268-96, 406-9; Johnsen, 156-61, 225-6, 252-4, 339-40. The privileged capitalists who controlled the Norwegian wood industries prospered in the eighteenth century before 1720 and after 1740, with pitch-tar, board, and plank, but not with masts. Exports of large masts from Norway were actually forbidden during at least part of the century. B7 453 (Marine) "Mémoire sur l'Etat du Commerce des françois, et celui de toutes les autres Nations commerçantes à Berghen et autres Ports de Norvège" (1787); Hovde, I, 34-5. 6 7 B 261 (Marine) "Liste des Marchandises et denrées qu'il convient à la France de tirer de la Grande Russie" (1713) ; B7 280 (Marine) "Un spécification des Bâtiments François venus à Bergen en Norvège" (1722). In England, "there was opposition to the great masts of Norway at an early date"; they were described as the worst in Europe as early as 1637. Albion, 31-2, 142. 7 The economic vigour of German ports had been crushed, and several of their number were in Swedish hands after 1648. Wars in Central Europe disrupted the long inland communications on which they depended, as entrepôts, to carry on trade. Swedish rule was ruinous to several of the "captive" German ports. Stettin, as a timber port, languished; "the period from 1648 to 1713 was undoubtedly the most dismal epoch for Stettin's trade"; the timber merchants of the city were almost entirely ruined. Riga fared better under Swedish administration, but her trade was subject to the whims of Russia, Sweden's enemy, who controlled the water routes over which Riga masts were necessarily brought. Handrack, 74, 84; Wehrmann, 325-6. 8 France imported some Swedish masts from Gôteborg for the navy in the early 1720's, but Sweden was importing masts herself in 1729. B3 268 (Marine) Guerreau to the Conseil de la Marine (1721) ; B7 300 (Marine) Vivier letter, dated Riga, 20 April 1729. Concerning Swedish export restrictions: F12 2686 (Arch Nat) "Tarifs et Règlements: Suède" (1782).

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continental mast and timber ports. Subsequently, through levies of extraordinary duties and prohibitions on exports from her own ports, she withdrew from the mast trade almost entirely. Sweden's Northern War not only interrupted sea lanes and hindered the traffic in naval stores, but temporarily ruined the northern market and carried in its train far-reaching transformations. Riga, as a Swedish possession, was subjected to a disastrous siege by the Czar in 1710 and the wartime trade which had brought over 200 ships to the city in 1709 was completely crushed.9 Pernau and Reval, lesser entrepôts for naval stores, changed hands several times. Trade at most east Baltic ports was shattered by the interruption of their communications with the hinterland, and by the movements of hostile fleets and armies;10 and with the Peace of Nystadt concluding the war (1721), the old east Baltic markets were transferred from Swedish to Russian hands. B.ussia and Prussia, new arrivals in the first rank of European states, extended their sway over all the important east Baltic mast and timber ports, with the exception of Polish Danzig. The war period had also seen the creation of a new city, St. Petersburg, which was destined to become a great shipbuilders' market. During the centuiy that followed, the trade in timber, board, and plank focused on the Prussian ports and Danzig, and the trade in northern masts became a virtual Russian monopoly at St. Petersburg and Riga. The French, of course, were aware of the commercial opportunities offered. Numerous memoranda preserved in their archives attest to a flurry of interest and activity in Baltic trade during the first quarter of the eighteenth century.11 The French consul at St. Petersburg in early 1715 is reported to have admitted to Mackenzie, the British envoy, that "Versailles had ambitions of opening up a great trade in those parts."12 A considerable volume of traffic in naval stores was even then being carried on: 5 foreign ships arrived at Le Havre with such cargoes in 1713, and 13 the next year.13 French merchants and shipowners at Dunkerque, St. Malo, Le Havre, and several lesser ports sent a record number of ships, no less than 130, ^Handrack, 84; Gadebusch, II, pt. IV, 673-4. lOGadebusch, II, pt. IV, 673-4; Mettig, 383. iiQn interest in Baltic trade, 1713-15: B2 235 (Marine) passim; B2 237 (Marine) fols. 257, 384, 534; B2 242 (Marine) passim. l2Reading, 83. 13B3 235 (Marine) fols. 448-51.

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to the Baltic in the years 1713-15, and their shipping activity continued, on a more restricted scale, in the 1720's.14 A commissaire de la marine was sent to Russia to handle details of trade and even the Compagnie des Indes sent an agent to the Baltic in 1726.15 In the decade after 1723, naval contractors sent a steady flow of masts and spars from Riga and other east Baltic ports to Brest, Rochefort, and Toulon.16 But the vigour of this French activity and its success in the years 1713-33 were dampened by the fact that trade became progressively more risky and difficult in the Russian market, especially for the French. French entrepreneurs, in some instances, suffered substantial losses,17 and beginning in 1716 their chances of loss were increased by a series of arbitrary tariffs that were clapped on the traffic at Russian ports, culminating in the exorbitant duties of 1724.18 Levies, sometimes retroactive, were imposed by unheralded decrees. They not only increased the cost and risk of trade, but gave maximum encouragement to smuggling, bribery, and to the infinite variety of evasive practices which characterized trade at the Russian ports in the eighteenth century, and with which the inexperienced and occasional, or non-resident merchant could not cope effectively. The tariff of 1724 was moderated for some foreign merchants in 1731,19 but was enforced against the French at least as late as 1739.20 In 1729 a prohibition on exports of masts was decreed ;21 like many another ukase of the day, this restriction was more evaded than obeyed, but it added to the complexity and risk of trade. A more constant source of difficulty for naval contractors, 14 Bang og Korst, for the appropriate years, 2-125. For a discussion of the Sound statistics and their limitations, based largely on Dutch sources: Gideonse, chap. ii. 15 7 B 288 (Marine) "Mémoire au sujet du Lin" (1726); Recueil des instructions: Russie, I, 132-4. 165E2 vols. 15-18 (Rochefort) "Estats des Mâts" (1723-35); IE 117 (Rochefort) fols. 306-7; B* 311 (Marine) fols. 36, 38; B» 321 (Marine) fols. 169, 215-16, 263. 17 Marbault, 154. On earlier French difficulties in the Russian market: Kirchner, 182 and passim. ^Reading, 263-5. i»/6id., 265-6. 20 In 1739 the Marquis de la Ghetardie, French Ambassador Extraordinary at St. Petersburg, was instructed to obtain, if possible, a "reformation of the tariff of 1724, which has rendered all [French] commerce with Russia impracticable." Recueil des instructions: Russie, I, 349-50. 21B7 300 (Marine) letter of M. du Vivier, dated Riga, 20 April 1729.

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particularly at St. Petersburg, were the abuses of the "bracking system" by which masts and timber were supposed to be classified according to quality for sale.22 With good reason, French merchants could lament, with Savary, "the inconstancy of this nation [of Muscovites], and the ill treatment they accord to foreigners."23 Negotiation of a commercial treaty with Russia offered one possibility by which the interests of French merchants could be protected from some of these risks and uncertainties, and an attempt at commercial discussions was made by the French during negotiations of the farcical "amity" treaty with Russia in 1717, but neither those discussions nor the subsequent work of a special FrancoRussian commercial commission were fruitful.24 Later, in 1723, the draft of a proposed treaty was drawn up by the French, with a characteristic recommendation that a company be established for trade, but again without issue. Yet the need for a treaty remained pressing, and in 1728 the French chargé d'affaires at St. Petersburg was instructed that he could do nothing more useful for the king than to apply all his cares to matters of trade.25 But by that date, and indeed for at least three decades after the death of Peter I in 1725, the positive hostility between Russia and France put a commercial treaty beyond the realm of diplomatic possibility, and weighed down French merchants, and their trade in masts, with crushing difficulties. Both political and commercial considerations stood in the way of a treaty. France, in the first half of the century, was unwilling to renounce her barriere de l'Est, her traditional support oi' Sweden, Poland, and the Ottoman Empire, Russia's principal enemies. French ties with Russia's hostile neighbours were then as fundamental to French policy as they were antagonistic and damaging to Russian interests.26 Czar Peter I, for his part, was interested in bringing French policy into line with Russian interests and, one may conjecture, might have offered some commercial favours had the French consented to compensatory political concessions. But economic incompatibility also stood in the way of Franco-Russian commercial rapport. Both were sellers, seeking to expand their exports; neither desired, nor needed, to buy from the other as much 23 22Albion, 148-9. Quoted by Hauser, 29;. 24Reading, 84; Guichen, 263. 25Reading, 94-5. ^Recueil des instructions: Russie, I, v, x-xi, xxviii-xxx, xxxv-xliv, 171 seq., 349-50.

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as it sold. Russian exports, aside from masts, hemp, fir board, and plank, and occasionally grains and irons, found little market in France. French colonial goods, wines, fine textiles, and other manufactures were much in demand in Russia, as in other northern markets, but during the first half of the century the importation of such non-essential merchandise was restricted and officially discouraged in Russia on mercantilist grounds. In general, both Russia and France sought to maximize exports and minimize imports. Characteristic of these commercial cross-purposes was the Czar's offer, in 1723, to sell masts and timber to France for cash, and the French counter-proposal to pay with merchandise.27 Against this combined commercial and political incompatibility of interests, French statesmanship accomplished precisely nothing during the first three quarters of the eighteenth century. Not until 1787 was a trade treaty with Russia obtained.28 Britain, not France, benefited by Russian commercial treaties in the eighteenth century, and after 1734 French merchants were crippled, as were the Dutch, by their failure to match the success of British commercial negotiators in Russia either as sellers of merchandise or as buyers of masts. The commercial consonance of British and Russian interests was largely responsible for British success. As one recent writer has pointed out, "Great Britain took off as much Russian merchandise in an average year in the eighteenth century as any other two nations, and paid more ready money in return than all the other European nations combined."29 British merchants customarily purchased three or more times as much as they sold in Muscovy. Their trade was the greatest source of Russia's bullion and vital tariff revenues.30 The Anglo-Russian commercial treaties of 1734 and 1766, and a multitude of concessions made to British merchants as individuals, were the logical outgrowth of the predominant position of Britain as a buyer of Russian exports. Through the Anglo-Russian treaties, English merchants acquired economic, judicial, and social advantages that were denied the French and other foreigners. Of special importance were the currency rights accorded the British for the payment of Russian cus27 G. 75 (Marine) Maurepas to Campredon, 17 October 1723. Cf. English reports of the Czar's proposition to supply 2 million crowns a year to France in naval stores and merchandise. Hist. MSS Comm., Polwarth, IV, 128, 131. ^Recueil des instructions: Russie, II, 397-8, 409; Busching, 124-6. 29Reading. 295. **Ibid., 37, 41, 62, 259 seq.

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toms duties: both export and import levies were thereby reduced. The advantages gained in 1734 were reinforced by the treaty of 1766.31 Until the 1780's, through the treaty provisions and the effects of Russian laws, British merchants enjoyed "an ever widening differential" between the tariff payments for which i;hey were liable and those paid by other foreign merchants.32 A variety of other general concessions were made to British merchants, among them the right to maintain their own factory at St. Petersburg, exemption from the jurisdiction of certain arbitrary a:id highly inefficient Russian courts, and the establishment of procedures to facilitate the collection of commercial debts.33 The total, effect of these concessions and privileges was to reduce substantially the direct and indirect costs involved in British commercial operations, and to give British merchants protection which other merchants were denied. Since the British merchants who gradually accumulated these privileges were far and away the greatest buyers of timber, masts, and other naval stores in the Russian market, it is not surprising that nearly the whole of the export trade in such commodities became concentrated in their hands. British merchant houses, Morison, Spenser, Thornton, Collins, and Wale-Pierson at Riga, and Took at St. Petersburg became "inseparably connected with the [British] Navy's timber supply."34 In 1760 one Englishman, Gom, "secured the exclusive right to export lumber from the Onega region for a period of thirty years."35 The very volume of their traffic gave the British advantages over their competitors, and their financial resources facilitated the long-term credit transactions so characteristic of the traffic in masts.36 Native Riga mast merchants lost their monopoly of the commission business when the English were given identical privileges,37 and many foreign buyers coming to Riga in the eighteenth century customarily commissioned British merchants to buy for them. Masts destined for the British, French, and Spanish navies alike passed through their hands. At St. Petersburg, in 1779, even the Dutch resident reported that his comsiScherer, II, 143 seq.; Reading, 259-70. Gideonse, chap. m. ssfiusching, 124; Marbault, 272-3, 276-7; Reading, chap. vni. 34Albion, 147; B* 99 (Marine) fol. 35; D^ 8 (Marine) fol. 107. 35 Gideonse, chap. in. 36Albion, 143; Marbault, 263-4; Reading, 48-50. 37Handrack, 30-1, 36.

32

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patriots "effected nearly all their purchases through English houses of commerce."38 The adversities the French encountered in Russia were largely responsible for the important role of foreign merchants, notably the Dutch, in supplying the navy with northern stores, including masts, in the three decades or so after 1735. Hope and Company of Amsterdam nearly monopolized the sale of Baltic masts to the French navy in the 1760's. French merchants also held contracts, but they usually found it expedient to commission foreigners to buy for them at the market. A Frenchman said of Russia in 1763 that "she knows our merchandise but has almost never seen our merchants";39 it was then equally exact to say that the French navy purchased and knew the value of Russian naval stores, but French naval contractors rarely visited the market whence northern masts were brought. A French merchant who proposed to deliver masts to the navy was obliged to make his bid high to cover both the cost of his own expenses and those of the commissioners he engaged. If he engaged the Dutch to buy and deliver for his account, his bid reflected not only the cost of Dutch commissions and freight, but also the commissions paid by the Dutch to their own commissioners at the market, for the Dutch did not enjoy, as the English did, the privilege of dealing direct with Russian merchants of masts. The Frenchman involved in such a transaction obtained low freight-rates when he engaged a Dutch house to buy for him, but in dealing with any intermediary he was well-advised to beware of such tricks of the trade as wooden plugs tamped into holes where rotten knots had been, and knots made to appear sound through the use of hot resin, or deliveries of inferior German masts under the Riga name and bracking marks.40 Such frauds would cost him dear if discovered by inspectors at the French naval yards. In 1744 M. de Saint-Sauveur, French chargé d'affaires at St. Petersburg, severely criticized French entrepreneurs for commissioning intermediaries to buy for their account. French merchants, he believed, should deal with their compatriots; unfortunately, as he admitted, there were no French houses of commerce at Riga. Until 38

Gideonse, chap. in. ^Recueil des instructions: Russie, II, 230. 40 On these fraudulent practices: D3 8 (Marine) fol. 227; Brun, I, 237; Albion, 29, 148-9.

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there were, he said, naval contractors should deal directly with merchants of that city, either with the indigenous bourgeoisie or with privileged foreigners. He was suggesting, by implication, that the unprivileged Dutch should not be employed, and that the English should be. "By this direct exchange," French merchants "not only save the cost of the first commission [that is, to the Dutch intermediaries], but gain the advantage of both lower price and better quality.5'41 It was indispensable, he added, "to choose Riga commissioners worthy of entire confidence." To avoid embarrassment and "establish their credit at the start," contractors should "remit funds to an Amsterdam merchant of sound reputation." Finally, he noted, the French navy might do well to follow the English example in awarding long-term contracts for masts.42 Just the sort of contract that Saint-Sauveur deplored was proposed to the navy in 1749. As was so often the case, the proposition involved both the employment of a Dutch intermediary and a request for a monopoly. On condition that the navy charge them with all its Baltic buying, two entrepreneurs, Beaujon and Goossens,43 the latter a naval contractor for many years, proposed to establish themselves as a "French merchant house at St. Petersburg . . . for direct commerce with Russia." They intended to employ the wellknown Thomas and Adrian Kope, wealthy Amsterdam merchantbankers, as their commissioners. Long under consideration, this project had by 1757 become the subject of an extensive correspondence.44 When the plan was given to M. de Saint-Sauveur for comment, his reaction was, of course, negative: the proposed merchant house could "only be regarded as a Dutch establishment," and the whole scheme "really offers none of the advantages that it seems to promise."45 It is of some interest to find that Hope and 41

B7 349 (Marine) mémoire entitled "Riga," by Saint-Sauveur, dated 15 August 1744. Cf. Busching, 125-8—at least part of the mémoire by Raimbert and Dumidy appears to have been prepared by M. de Saint-Sauveur, or was the latter's mémoire prepared by the merchants for him? 42 The English, "well aware of the necessity of giving their commissions in advance . . . have charged Spenser and Company, of Riga, with a ten-year contract" for masts. B7 349 (Marine), mémoire entitled "Riga" (1744). 43 Goossens had held contracts for Baltic plank and pitch-tar from Archangel, which he visited. 5E2 vols. 18-19 (Rochefort) "La soumission du Sr Goossens du 1 Mars 1741" and passim. 44 7 B 402 (Marine) "Analise de la Correspondance de St. Petersbourg," 53 pages of closely spaced small hand. 4 ^Ibid., B7 408 (Marine) "Observations sur le Mémoire de Srs Beaujon et Goossens du 28 janvier 1757," 28 February 1757.

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6

Company, without MM. Beaujon and Goossens/ held major contracts as buyers of Riga masts for the navy in the 1760's, and the masts delivered under their early contracts were from 25 to 30 per cent less costly than those delivered by certain French entrepreneurs in the same period.47 The acquisition of masts became more difficult with the intensification of naval activity in the second half of the century. The toll taken from forests in Poland and European Russia increased.48 Mast-cutting had long since reduced the productiveness of forests near the ports, and exploitations were being carried up the rivers far into the interior of the continent to satisfy growing demands. As early as 1740, forest depletion made it difficult to procure masts of over 24 palms in the north, and by the early 1770's large masting trees were rare in the north; Polish forests were then said to be exhausted in that respect.49 These circumstances naturally intensified competition among the buyers, and since the French were primarily interested in the choice, larger pieces,50 their needs were particularly difficult to satisfy. It can be imagined with what gloom the French received dispatches in 1766 announcing that the British, through a new treaty with Russia, had fortified themselves with further privilege in this vital and highly competitive market. The situation was not, however, as dark for the French in the 1760's as it had been some years earlier. In Russia, the disgrace of the Grand Chancellor Bestuzhev in 1757 had ended two decades of his Anglophile influence. In that same year, the restoration of diplomatic relations between France and Russia, which had been entirely suspended since 1748, brought the re-establishment of French consuls at the mast markets. Thereafter, a considerable volume of consular renseignements concerning Russian trade in general, and the mast trade in particular, came to the navy from the consuls at 4G Beaujon and Goossens did supply large quantities of stores used in the construction of bateaux plats in 1759-60. See above, chapter iv, pp. 61-2. 4 ?G. 122 (Marine) fol. 164; B* 73 (Marine) fols. 251-2, 260; B* 74 (Marine) fols. 193-4, 282-5. 48 In 1750 the maritime powers took about 4,000 masts and the equivalent of 15 thousand others, in lesser pieces, from Riga alone; in 1763 that port supplied 6,500 masts and an aggregate of about 53 thousand trees to buyers. B3 627 (Marine) fols. 70, 235. 49B1 77 (Marine) fol. 211; Bi 80 (Marine) fol. 213. 50 Their need for small masts and spars was not so pressing, because they could obtain them from Dauphiné. Auvergne, the Pyrenees, and other localities in France.

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Riga and St. Petersburg. The consuls, among other things, reported details concerning the financial strength of several substantial commercial houses that had been established by Frenchmen, or by merchants of French origin and sympathy, at St. Petersburg. One of these, Raimbert,51 executed special commissions for the Duc de Choiseul and for the Compagnie des Indes in the 1760's, and acted as buyer for a French contractor furnishing hemp to the navy.52 These developments seemed to brighten the future a bit, but there was no use dissimulating the difficulties that still remained. The French, since they did not have privileges in the states of the Czarina, were allowed "nothing but a purely passive commerce" in naval stores, "enormously different from that of the English," some of whom transacted business on a par with the favoured Russian merchants themselves. "In the absence of a comptoir we have no freedom to carry on our own affairs."53 France, it was admitted, "will have considerable difficulty developing a large trade with Russia. . . . the tariffs on French merchandise are exorbitant; private persons hold all branches of commerce as monopolies; they have often defaulted on their obligations and they are declared partisans of England . . . with which they have formed indissoluble ties. . . ." yet, "for our part, we cannot dispense either with their hemp or their masts."54 For the time being at least, the French had to bear their disabilities; a commercial treaty was years away. The best they could do was to eliminate unnecessary foreign intermediaries in their dealings with the north; hence no further contracts were awarded to the Dutch since they, like the French themselves, had no commercial treaty with Russia and enjoyed no special privileges at Russian markets.55 Instead, French merchants were employed as contractors. Jean-Charles Dujardin de Ruzé5G became the navy's principal r)1

Concerning Raimbert and other French houses in the north: F12 622 (Arch Nat) "Commerce de Russie," 15 December 1757; B? 414 (Marine) "Mémoire sur le Commerce de Russie," by M. de l'Hôpital, 22 February 1761; B? 431 (Marine) Boyetet letter, dated St. Petersburg, 29 September 1771; Busching, 125-8. 52B? 425 (Marine) letters of Rossignol (1766) and Gilly (28 February 1766) ; B? 436 (Marine) Raimbert to Montigny via Praslin, 5 December 1767. 5337 414 (Marine) "Du Commerce avec La Russie" (1760). ^Recueil des instructions: Russie, II, 251. Cf. II, 230, 297, 336. 55 Gideonse, chap. m. 5G Also referred to as M. Ruzé du Jardin.

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buyer of Baltic masts in the 1770's. He had furnished hemp and other stores to the navy in the sixties, part of which were purchased in the Baltic, and beginning in 1769 he signed three successive contracts, two of 3 years' duration and one of 6, to supply naval masts.57 He did not deal with Dutch intermediaries; but he had no choice but to employ foreign commissioners at the market to buy for him. De Ruzé's personal success in obtaining a mast contract, thus replacing Hope and Company, the principal Baltic suppliers of the 1760's, must have stemmed in part from the fact that he had already shown he could buy Baltic hemp and other stores for the navy on reasonable terms. But certainly the comparatively low prices at which he offered to deliver were also a powerful argument in his favour. The prices on masts to which he initially agreed were about the same as the Dutch prices of the mid-17 60's, and even under the contract he signed in 1772, his prices rose only 6 or 7 per cent above those of the Dutch in the previous decade. Since market prices had risen, and were steadily increasing under the pressure of forest depletion and increasing demand, this was not a significant rise. As a matter of fact, de Ruzé's prices were about 18 per cent below the prices paid in 1741, and 32 per cent below some of those of 1755.58 His contract must have seemed very attractive to the navy on economic grounds, but for both de Ruzé and the navy the low prices to which he committed himself were to prove a handicap, as we shall presently see. One curious difficulty encountered by this contractor, and one that appears to have been entirely unnecessary, was that of obtaining an indication of the navy's needs early enough each year to enable him to place his orders for the following year.59 It was customary, at Riga and St. Petersburg, for all buyers to give orders to their commissioners no later than September for the shipments which would arrive at the market the following spring or early summer.60 It was impossible, after September, to increase the number, so great was the distance to the Polish and Russian forests 57 B1 74 (Marine) fols. 282-5; B? 436 (Marine) Raimbert to de Montigny, 5 December 1767. 58 D3 8 (Marine) fol. 106; 5E2 21 (Rochefort) de Ruzé contract, dated 27 November 1772; 1A1 73 (Toulon) de Ruzé contract, printed copy dated 25 October 1775. Hope and Company prices, and others, in B1 74 (Marine) fols. 187-8, 193-4; D3 5 (Marine) fol. 29. •F'9Bi 80 (Marine) fols. 207-8. ™Ibid.

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where the masts were cut. Buyers who were late in placing their orders stood at the bottom of the priority list, and were forced to choose from what was left after their more prompt competitors had bought what they wanted. In 1774 de Ruzé complained bitterly of the delay in dispatching to him the necessary orders and authorization to buy. Perhaps he overstated the frequency and importance of this particular difficulty, by way of self-justification. Yet there does appear to have been real ground for complaint, for a naval official, who may have indulged in some exaggeration himself, remarked in a memorandum in 1778, otherwise quite critical of de Ruzé, that "orders . . . which should arrive in the month of September, have always been delivered to him three, four, or six months late.5561 During more than a decade as a contractor for northern masts, de Ruzé dealt with several merchant houses, which served as his commissioners and bought for his account. That of Blankenhagen, "a house of honest men . . . worth more than five million,"62 was commissioned by him at least as early as 1775. During a considerable part of his tenure as a contractor, two English houses at Riga were his commissioners: "Wilpirson" (Wale, Pierson & Company), and Collins and Company.63 Wale-Pierson was predominantly an English house; Collins entirely English. Then and later, both of these houses were engaged in supplying the British navy, as well as the French, with masts. Over the years Wale-Pierson became suspect and the Collins buyers were, later, declared to be "entirely devoted to their nation and opposed to our [French] interests."64 Dealings with these English houses were curtailed after the outbreak of war and, sometime before the peace, were suspended entirely. But it can be presumed that when de Ruzé chose to deal with the English houses, as he did for many years, he was convinced that their influence in the market was great, and that his personal economic interests, and the navy's needs, could best be served through them. De Ruzé would have agreed with Vergennes who, in speaking of buying naval stores in Russia, explained that 61D3 8 (Marine) fol. 108. Cf. fol. 87 and B1 99 (Marine) fol. 36. 62B1 99 (Marine) fols. 35, 38. **Ibid.; C? 15 (Marine) dossier Barbé. fi4 3 D 8 (Marine) fol. 107; B7 448 (Marine) "Mémoire contenant les remarques sur le Commerce et la Navigation de la Baltique," (1784).

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"if we often buy from the English, it is because they, by means of their privileges, can provide them at lower cost.5365 But even granting the improbable willingness of both these English commission houses to serve the French and English navies impartially, de Ruzé was at a serious disadvantage. He was limited as to the prices he could pay and yet retain his margin of profit, and his disability was particularly great when he tried to buy those large masts which the French navy particularly wanted, and which had become both rare and very high in price at Baltic markets. The limit of his ability to pay must have been at least partly responsible for the mediocre quality of some of his early deliveries, particularly in 1773.66 Shortly thereafter, he solicited, and in the contract signed in 1775, obtained a blanket increase in prices of 17^2 per cent.67 His position as a buyer was thus improved, but even so, the very fact of his commitment to a fixed scale of prices was a handicap : "no doubt [he] very expressly ordered that his purchases be made at the lowest possible price."68 The British navy, particularly interested, like the French, in the choice larger pieces which were desperately scarce at British navy yards after 1776,69 gave orders to buy above prevailing market prices.70 Under such circumstances, with the same commissioners holding contracts for the supply of both navies, it is hardly surprising that the British obtained the finest available masts, and that those allotted to de Ruzé were often mediocre and unsatisfactory, and rarely of the larger sizes. Obviously this matter of prices was not least of the numerous factors which adversely affected both the quantity and quality of masts delivered by de Ruzé to France before 1778. Between 1775 and 1777 the navy earmarked 1,800 thousand livres for the purchase of northern masts, and de Ruzé was designated to supply practically all of them.71 Yet during that period he spent only 710 thousand livres and, as one naval official complained, supplied "so few choice pieces that the cost of his deliveries in relation to ^Recueil des instructions: Russie, II, 336. 66B1 80 (Marine) fols. 207-8. 67D3 8 (Marine) fol. 106. **Ibid., fol. 107. 69 Britain's North American supplies, which normally included very large masts, were cut off in 1775. Albion, 285 seq. 70D3 8 (Marine) fol. 107. tilbid.y fol. 104. At least one additional contract was awarded to another merchant. 5E2 21 (Rochefort) copy of the contract (dated 1777).

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their utility was excessively high."72 More than two-thirds of the 300 masts he sent from Riga to Brest and other ports in 1776 were rejected.73 In an effort to obtain greater numbers of large pieces, not to be had at Riga, de Ruzé purchased an assortment at St. Petersburg, some of which went to Brest as samples, where their poor quality reduced the designated value by nearly half.74 Of all the masts purchased and delivered to France during the three years 1775-7, 1,107 were of 13 palms or under, and of little use for larger ships.75 "The whole of these deliveries included only 2 masts of 26 palms, 2 of 24 (the sizes most generally necessary), and only 23 of 23 palms."76 Many of those actually accepted by the inspectors were so poor in quality, or so badly proportioned, as to cause considerable waste and loss when employed. Prices were drastically reduced on 297 of them because of "the defects by which they were afflicted."77 It is significant, and an indication of the unfavourable position of de Ruzé as a buyer, that during this period the British did far better than the French at the Russian market. In 1775 alone, 667 "great masts" were brought to England from the east Baltic.78 In late 1777 and early 1778 a British purchasing mission obtained masts of greater size than any acquired by the French: "forty-one masts over thirty inches in diameter, with many more between twenty-three and twenty-nine inches."79 Late in 1777 the British Navy Board informed the Admiralty that " '. . . His Majesty's magazines are at present well-supplied with masts.5 "80 It was apparently impossible for the French to obtain masts of the largest sizes. A naval contractor working for them was apparently unable to spend, even for lesser pieces, all the money he was allotted; the percentage of inferior pieces in what he did buy 7

-D:i 8 (Marine) fol. 104. /&i¿f., fol. 92. In one shipment of masts, ranging from 13 to 23 palms, 12 were entirely useless to the navy and only 2 were accepted at the full designated value; defects, some very serious, reduced the value of all the others: "these 32 masts, which cost him [de Ruzé] from 6,000 to 7,000 livres in freight, were actually worth only 3.934 livres; they would have been valued at about 20 thousand had they been of good quality." D3 8 (Marine) fol. 107. 75 3 "4B1 80 (Marine) fols. 157-8. D 8 (Marine) fols, 104-5. Wlbid. nibid. 78 Albion, 284. The term "great masts." in this case, included all those exceeding 20 inches in diameter. wibid., 287-8. ™Ibid. 78

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was high and, considered in their entirety, his deliveries failed by their assortment to satisfy the navy's needs. In 1778 the supplies on hand at Brest (1,239 masts) would with difficulty suffice for a single year of war.81 The conviction then prevailed that during the other three years of the four-year war which was then anticipated, the dockyards at Brest alone would require 2,400 additional masts.82 At all the yards reserves were low, precariously low in view of the difficulties of wartime supply. The principal reason for the small reserves lay in the difficulties encountered by de Ruzé in his Baltic buying on the eve of war. The outbreak of war in 1778 was an invitation to abuses in the system by which masts were offered to buyers at Riga and St. Petersburg markets. Masts were normally arranged for sale in numbered lots of two or three, or half-a-dozen pieces. A lot might include several good pieces, and others less desirable; one mast of exceptional size and quality might be teamed with several poor or defective pieces. Lots were "unbreakable." Buyers took all or nothing. One can visualize them measuring individual pieces for over-all length, diameter at the heel, and taper at the head; counting the knots; looking for signs of twisted grain, for the telltale reddish hue and blackish resin denoting incipient deterioration, or rot; estimating the age of the tree; and, no mean feat, calculating the relation of all such factors, and others, to the monetary value of a lot. But in the period of great naval demand after 1778, such calculations were rendered more difficult and less fruitful, because lots were then sold collectively in assortments of several hundred pieces. Proprietors cleaned up their forests and merchants cleared their yards by throwing inferior and entirely worthless pieces on the market in the knowledge that they could be sold to hard-pressed buyers when mixed with other pieces of better quality. The French sent master mastmen to Riga and St. Petersburg but "their choice meant little when, in assortments of 200 masts . . . they often found only two or four precious [great] pieces and a mere dozen that could be employed."83 A buyer had either to choose one or more of the assortments offered for sale, or take nothing at all. It was useless, and sometimes dangerous to a buyer's interests, to complain. It was reported in France that at St. Petersburg the Russian **D3 8 (Marine) fol. 107. 8 *fii 99 (Marine) fol. 36.

**Ibid., fols. 108-9.

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authorities were "convinced that all masts delivered and sold at the port were of excellent quality, since the English navy questioned nothing and accepted all that were offered for sale."84 War increased the losses incurred by buyers at the northern market, and greatly increased the prices paid for masts. Ocean shipment to France, when practicable at all, became exorbitant in cost. A shipment of 100 masts ranging in size from 15 to 25 palms, which in 1775 would have cost 100 thousand livres delivered at Brest, cost 268 thousand in 1781.85 Throughout the War of American Revolution, the navy's expenditures for Baltic masts were prodigious,86 but large expenditures did not suffice to assure good or even satisfactory quality. There were grave difficulties in the acquisition of even inferior masts in wartime. Russian law, if we are to believe one French memoirist of 1779, then actually forbade "the sale and exportation of large masts of 23 or more palms," and the purchase and shipment of smaller pieces was circumscribed by divers restrictions, still more by the enormous droit de sortie, and the Riga tariff with an addition of 13 per cent. . . . If one were to comply strictly with all the ukases, the choice and shipment of masts would become impossible. . . . in a word the privileges [of purchase and exportation], with the restrictions by which they are enchained and modified, actually appear to be prohibitions.87

As early as 1779, buying at Riga had become so difficult that some mast buyers, including de Ruzé, attempted to shift part of their purchasing to other ports, including those on the White Sea, though it was known that the masts obtainable at the far northern ports were small in size and "inferior in quality to those of Riga, and perhaps also to those of St. Petersburg."88 Nor did the conditions of Baltic buying greatly improve in the later years of the war. Notwithstanding the conviction that masts from the Russian ports were s*D3 8 (Marine) fol. 104. 85 E. 206 (Marine) "Etat par aperçu d'un chargement de mâtures acheté à Riga . . . en 1780-81," signed Barbé. Cf. IE 216 (Rochefort) fols. 120-2. 86 In 1781, 1,501 thousand livres had been paid to de Ruzé for masts, and a sum of 1,498 thousand livres was still due on his accounts. E. 205 (Marine) "Dépenses par aperçu de l'année 1781." 87 7 B 441 (Marine) "Mémoire sur la liberté du Commerce des Mâts et Bois de Sapin en Russie" (1779). s&Bi 85 (Marine) fol. 249; B1 92 (Marine) fols. 22, 25, 27.

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without peers, the navy agreed in 1781 to the delivery of masts "similar to those of Riga."89 Those delivered actually came from Memel, a notoriously poor source of supply, and "nearly all" proved "doubtful, defective, or bad";90 nevertheless, the navy's needs were then so pressing that the contractor involved was authorized to double his shipments.01 The effectiveness of de Ruzé's buying during the war can be gauged by the quantity and quality of masts and spars arriving at Amsterdam for his account. Amsterdam, both before and after the Dutch entered the struggle in 1780, served as a way-station for many of his shipments. England was determined not to allow France to use neutral shipping, and hence shipments all the way to France from the Baltic by sea became a near impossibility. De Ruzé's Baltic purchases piled up at Amsterdam because there were no Dutch shippers willing to risk the last, most dangerous lap of the voyage, from Amsterdam to France. Six Dutch ships, 3 from Riga and 3 from St. Petersburg, arrived at the Texel in 1778 with large cargoes of masts destined for French naval yards,92 but the cargoes had eventually to be disembarked because the ships were unable to proceed. The size of these cargoes, which included nearly 500 masts and 223 spars, suggests something of the quantitative success of de Ruzé's buying. But the poor quality of his purchases was disclosed when those six cargoes were inspected at Amsterdam in 1780: only 210 masts were acceptable; all the spars and 271 masts were rejected as unfit for use by the navy.93 Their long sojourn in the holds of the ships and their storage after disembarkation was of course partly responsible for their affliction with rot, but many were condemned as too knotted, twisted, and crooked, and too badly proportioned to be serviceable,94 so they must have been defective when de Ruzé bought them. Similarly, in 1780, a great shipment of 18 cargoes came to Amsterdam from Danzig and Memel, including 219 masts and 1,800 spars, with great quantities 89B1 99 (Marine) fol. 37. This contract was awarded to Raimbert & Co. De Ruzé's six-year contract, signed in 1775, expired in 1781 and does not appear to have been renewed. 90B1 96 (Marine) fol. 56. 91 Bi 99 (Marine) fol. 37. 92B7 443 (Marine) letter of Lironcourt, commissaire de la marine in Holland, 16 November 1780, and two procès verbaux transmitted therewith. ®%Ibid., procès verbaux. 94 7 B 443 (Marine) procès verbaux.

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of hemp, board, and plank.95 When inspected in May 1781, the greater part of these stores was found to be unfit for use; again the masts and spars were knotted and badly proportioned, and the deal very poor in quality.96 It is significant that in early 1779 Sir Charles Middleton, who headed the British Navy Board, protested that the naval stores captured or detained to prevent their reaching France were, because of poor quality, "neither useful to us nor to the enemy."97 Certainly a great many of the masts purchased by de Ruzé and other French buyers during the war were unusable, and the pieces that were deemed fit to be shipped to France represented meagre returns for the efforts of the contractors and the navy's vast expenditures. Yet the difficulties of buying and the poor quality of some of the masts purchased should not obscure the fact that a great many usable pieces reached French dockyards during the war and played a decisive role in keeping the French fleet, and the Spanish fleet, that obtained major repairs at Brest in 1779, in a fit state to keep the sea. About half the masts arriving at Amsterdam in 1778 were, in 1780, found to be acceptable. Neutral shipping brought some valuable shipments to French yards before 1780. By the end of 1781 nearly 2,000 masts of all dimensions had traversed a circuitous inland canal and river route from Amsterdam to France.98 The port of Rochefort ended the war with 900 Baltic masts in stock, and even the distant port of Toulon had 300 or more on hand from the Baltic in 1783.99 Costly and difficult though Baltic buying was during the war, it was far from being a futile enterprise for the navy. With the signing of peace in 1783, severe criticism was levelled at the navy's methods of procurement and the seeming lack of foresight which had characterized purchases in the Baltic. It was said that in times of peace, the buying of masts had been "put off from year to year, as if to await some European disturbance or war . . . until the moment when prices are high and the difficulty of shipment is great; the method of purchase, it seems, has had little purpose but to enrich the merchants."100 Critics urged "the necessity 95g7 445 (Marine) procès verbal, signed Barbé, Lironcourt, et al., dated 19 May 1781. 98 **Ibid. 9?Albion, 19°Reussner, 25. 5 1 9»B 24 (Marine) inventaires. ^B 99 (Marine) fol. 35.

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of more efficacious measures in the future,"101 and their urgings took form in policy. Enormous funds were employed for stockpiling Baltic masts after 1783. There was good reason to believe that buying in the comparatively tranquil post-war market would be economical. Prices should be low with the buying of other maritime powers at low ebb, and the French hoped to take advantage of this languor to accumulate a four-year supply.102 Bitter experience with the multiple problems of wartime buying made this programme ideal from the point of view of the navy, though the depleted state of the French treasury made it somewhat less advisable. Experience had already amply proved that contracts with French or other unprivileged merchants not native to the northern market added large middlemen's commissions to the cost of purchase; the services of such merchants had, with considerable justice, been termed "perfectly useless,"103 It was felt that the navy should deal with a great and substantial merchant house native to the market and well endowed with privileges.104 Knowing that the needs of the French were specialized, and expecting to have to do selective buying for them, several northern merchant houses showed themselves unwilling to act except on commission. The navy's confidence was finally placed in two men: Blankenhagen and Barbé. Blankenhagen was a prosperous Riga merchant who had served as commissioner for de Ruzé and was believed not to have trafficked with the English in the war. Barbé, having also worked with de Ruzé both in the Baltic and at Amsterdam in an official capacity as inspector of masts, was the navy's representative in this commission-buying team.105 As usual, the navy was most interested in acquiring masts of the largest size. All the dockyards, and Brest in particular, were surcharged with masts of small dimension in 1783.106 It was "absolutely necessary" to buy choice larger pieces to restock the ports.107 Blankenhagen and Barbé, to satisfy these special needs, were obliged to buy assortments; four or five thousand masts costing about 2 wi/ttd., fol. 38. 102B1 99 (Marine) fols. 28-9, 32, 37-8. ™*Ibid., fol. 38. UHIbid., fols. 28, 38. 105 7 C 15 (Marine) dossier Barbé, dealing with services of both father and son. 106 Bi 98 (Marine) fol. 156; Bi 99 (Marine) fol. 65. 10 7fii 99 (Marine) fols. 29, 73; IE 229 (Rochefort) fol. 132.

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million livres, it was said, had to be bought to acquire for the navy a selection of 600 pieces of élite mâture.108 Hundreds of unwanted masts, either defective pieces or those of the overstocked unwanted sizes, had to be purchased and then shipped at great expense from Riga to Amsterdam or French commercial ports for sale—a procedure which, though necessary, greatly increased the cost of the choice pieces the navy saw fit to retain.109 Competition between buyers at the Riga market was unexpectedly keen in 1784-5, though certainly less so than during the war. The flow of masts to Riga was interrupted that year by low water in the rivers, particularly the Dvina, on which the masts were floated on the last lap of their trek from the forests.110 In 1784, with market offerings far below expectations, masts for delivery the following year were "retained in advance with the greatest avidity by agents of the different powers,"111 and were entirely sold out by March; French orders to buy arrived too late.112 Generally, however, the post-war difficulties of French naval buyers at the Russian market did not bulk as large as they usually had before. Temporary improvement in the political and economic relations between Russia and France after 1783 had a generally salutary effect on the trade in masts. Buying by the British dropped off, reflecting both the quieting influence of peace and Britain's substitution of New Brunswick masts for some of those hitherto drawn from Russian sources.113 Moreover, the French had adjusted their methods oí buying to conditions at the market, and had accepted the fact that commission buying of assortments, not contract buying of individual pieces, was best calculated to satisfy their needs. Although Blankenhagen eventually became suspected of fraud,114 he and Barbé were for some years a satisfactory team. 108B1 99 (Marine) fol. 40. 109/fcíd., fols. 28-9, 32, 38-40; IE 229 (Rochefort) fols. 41, 132-3; B3 757 (Marine) fois. 155-6. Russian law then forbade resales at the market. "OBI 99 (Marine) fols. 44-6, 50. ui/Wd., fol. 44. 11231 99 (Marine) fols. 77-8; B? 451 (Marine) "Mémoire d'Observation sur le Commerce de la Baltique" (1785). "«Albion, 292. 114 In 1789 evidence was found that, instead of buying for the navy's account, as a commissioner should, he bought masts on his own account and resold at higher prices to the navy, thus taking an intermediary's profit in addition to his authorized commission of 4 per cent. D3 16 (Marine) "Tableaux des Prix de chaque espèce de Mâts Expédiés de Riga," no. 3 (1789).

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Their methods, systematically extravagant, were dictated by the peculiarities of the market and the navy's pressing need for masts of the largest size. Though costs were exorbitant, the quality of deliveries was generally good, certainly better than in wartime, and after 1784 the quantity shipped to the dockyards more than satisfied the needs of the navy. By 1785 Brest had 6,000 masts on hand, and a year later, Toulon, the dockyard most difficult to supply, was stocked with 2,300.115 It is evident that French buyers of Baltic masts laboured under severe handicaps throughout the eighteenth century. As the old régime drew toward its close their difficulties increased, particularly in the decade after 1772. The effects of forest depletion in Russia and Poland then coincided with unprecedented demand by the navies of both Britain and France. The French, by then, had worked over or rejected most of their own forests as sources of supply, and Britain during that decade lost her New England preserves; both powers were dependent on the Baltic to a greater extent than at any time during the preceding century. In the intense competition for supplies that resulted, the British, though tardy in becoming fully aware of their need for Baltic imports in the 1770's, enjoyed a telling advantage through the pre-eminence of their merchants in east Baltic trade. That pre-eminence was sustained by the vigour and skill of the merchants and supported by British foreign and commercial policy. The French navy was necessarily at a disadvantage, being forced to buy through foreign commissioners, often Englishmen engaged in buying for the British navy. French buying was effected in the face of commercial weakness that was perpetuated by a succession of Bourbon kings and their ministers who pursued political, at the expense of economic aims. H5B5 26 (Marine) inventaire; 1A1 137 (Toulon) inventaire.

CHAPTER NINE

Merchant Shipping and the Timber Problem

READING the classic handbook on trade by Savary, successive generations of French shipowners must have nodded assent to the author's assertion that the French "have convinced themselves that they cannot traffic in the north either as well or with as much advantage as the Dutch."1 In their experience, northern enterprise had an unfortunate and at times disastrous propensity for standing large on the debit side of their ledgers. They calculated that the American colonial trades, and the rich trades of the Levant and the East offered more attractive fields for gain than the bustling sea lanes of the north.2 Sporadic efforts were made in France to change the business habits of her entrepreneurs with respect to northern trade, but with little apparent effect. On the average, only 10 French ships a year registered (eastbound) at the Sound in the period from 1713 to 1780; in the same period the British averaged more than 500 and the Dutch over 800 ships a year.3 Although French exports and imports traversing northern European sea lanes greatly increased in volume during the eighteenth century, they were almost entirely carried in foreign bottoms. And it was precisely along the northern sea lanes and in the Baltic that French shipping could have been employed to freight the increasing quantities of northern stores imported by the navy. But the navy 3

Savary, I, pt. II, 198. See, "Relations commerciales," 609. 3 Bank og Korst, tables for France, England, Scotland, and the Netherlands. Cf. Gideonse, chap. n. Writing after the middle of the eighteenth century, a French memoirist observed: "Our exports and imports from the north continue to be effected seven-eights by the Dutch, Danes, Swedes, Hamburgers, and Genoese. . . . our overseas navigation has been in a passive state." F2^ 2 (Colonies) "Projet général de Commerce et de Navigation" (s.d.). 2

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and its contractors, like the merchants, depended on foreign ships, and actually preferred them. To explain why the navy relied on foreign shipping for importing timber in peacetime requires an explanation of why there were few French ships in northern trade. Reference must be made, at the outset, to conditions that affected the development of the French merchant marine as a whole.4 In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the territorial designs, dynastic rivalries, and religious disposition of the Grand Monarch, rather than the interests and aims of mere merchants and ministers, determined the direction and extent of French maritime development. Colbert did try to give French maritime power a solid base, and to diminish dependence on foreigners by encouraging shipbuilding and shipping industries in France. He supported maritime enterprise with government aid, and defended its importtance in royal councils. But his long-range efforts in the realm of trade and navigation were largely neutralized by the aggressive continental designs of the king. It was, for example, inherent in the very nature of royal policy that Colbert's Compagnie du Commerce du Nord, established in 1669 to freight northern masts and timber for the new navy and to wrest the northern branch of the carrying trade from the Dutch, was irreparably smashed by a war initiated if not actually fomented by Louis XIV as a means of acquiring territory and taking vengeance against the Dutch.5 Religious persecution, culminating in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes after Colbert's death, deprived France of many thousands of enterprising citizens, many of whom had been brought into the country at great trouble and expense, and whose emigration had a profoundly debilitating effect on the promise of French maritime economic life.6 The long succession of Louis XIV's territorial and dynastic wars after 1685, with the accompanying interruption of 4 "One is inclined to agree with the opinion of David Hannay that it was a patriotic delusion on the part of complacent Englishmen when they believed that it was the British navy that ruined French maritime activity." Dorn, 119. "In the building and maintenance of fleets, British governments were to show greater constancy than did the French, simply because, thanks to the English Channel, there were no continuous and exhausting conflicts of interest." Graham, 40. 5 Boissonnade et Charliat, 102 seq. Cf. Rowen, 91, 203-4, 260, 269, and passim. 6 Charliat, Trois Siècles, 36, 40-2 ; Scoville, "The Huguenots," passim.

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commerce and destruction of shipping, not only depleted France's maritime resources but diverted her shipowners from commercial to privateering enterprise and reversed the constructive processes of maritime growth that Colbert had been at such pains to stimulate. French trade with northern Europe, in spite of the efforts, achievements, and hopes of the Colbert period, remained in the hands of foreign shippers like the Dutch and Hanseats, who had carried most of that traffic for decades before Colbert came to power, and who prospered long after with the support of governments more responsive than the French to the needs of maritime commercial enterprise. Given the pre-eminence of continental aims, one might suppose that maritime matters would have been neglected by Louis XIV and Louis XV; on the contrary, in many respects they were overregulated in Colbert fashion by comprehensive ordonnances, such as those of 1681 and 1689, and by a multitude of lesser statutes in both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries relating to the minutiae of commercial navigation. But the extent of state intervention wras not an index to the responsiveness of Bourbon government to the needs of trade and commercial navigation. The monarchs and their ministers, on numerous occasions, evinced a willingness to sacrifice the interests of French merchants and shippers in order to gain dynastic or political ends.7 Cases in point were the numerous grants of exemption from the droit de fret, a levy of 50 sous per ton on foreign ships trading in French ports. First decreed in 1659,8 this levy might have become, as Arnould suggests, the palladium of French commercial navigation.9 Instead, shipping under almost every flag in northern Europe at one time or another obtained partial or total immunity from the levy as it applied to 7

Picavet, 281-7, with references there cited; La Roncière, V, 329; Tramond, 275-6. "Though he could not be quite indifferent to the cries of the French merchants when they were really injured, Fleury's tortuous and far-seeing diplomacy was almost entirely political in its motives and ambitions, so that there was not great likelihood that the maritime grievances would become more than a pretext for strong measures which had been resolved upon for other reasons." Pares, Colonial Blockade, 226-7. ^Déclaration du rot, 20 June 1659, confirmed by subsequent enactments in 1664, 1681, and 1701; increased to 100 sous a ton, 24 November 1750. Valin, I, 620. 9Arnould, II, 31-2.

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10

ships engaged in high seas navigation. Dutch and other foreign ships were exempted from the droit even as it applied to French coastal traffic,11 a realm of trade nearly always forbidden to neighbours by the European powers. By the Pacte de Famille of 1761, Spanish and Neapolitan shippers were accorded blanket exemption from this crippling levy.12 Throughout the whole period from 1659 to 1789 French shippers were kept at a disadvantage by these exemptions granted to their foreign competitors by the state. "Foreign ships," as one French writer remarked, "were attracted by sudden advantages; then under the seductive influence of Colbert's dream, protective measures momentarily closed our ports."13 The droit de fret was alternately imposed and withdrawn, and a vacillating "hot and cold" commercial shipping policy of this kind, in sharp contrast to the consistent policy followed by Britain, damaged French shipping interests and discouraged French efforts to take part in the timber trade or any other branch of highly competitive shipping enterprise in the north. Hardly less damaging to the French merchant marine was the fact that while, like the English merchant marine, it had to make certain sacrifices for the support of a royal navy, it did not receive compensation in the form of protection in time of war, as did its English counterpart. Throughout the eighteenth century the Bourbon navy was usually short of funds and numerically inferior to its major enemy. It seldom could, and rarely did keep the sea lanes open or give adequate protection to French commercial shipping in times of war, least of all in the narrow seas. Whereas the British 10

The droit was reduced to 25 sous for Dutch ships carrying French exports of salt (arrêt of 16 February 1663). Total exemption was granted to the Dutch (for example, in 1678, 1697, 1713, 1785), and withdrawn, on numerous occasions. Other exemptions were granted to Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Bremen, Liibeck, Danzig, Spain, the Two Sicilies, Ragusa. Valin, I, 620-1 ; Arnould, II, 28-32; Arnauné, 34-8. n On exemptions to Dutch ships on an individual basis after 1763: B1 69 (Marine) fol. 217; B3 561 (Marine) fol. 222. 12 "Premier Mémoire du Parlement de Provence sur les finances" (MSS dated 1765 in Seligman collection, Columbia University), II, fol. 481-2; Arnould, II, 32. The magistrates of the Parlement of Provence "complained that high freight rates had already caused the loss, to French shippers, of their nation's own coastwise trade," and urged that the droit de fret be increased to 10 livres a ton, as Forbonnais had suggested. Beik, 171-2. ^Mémoires et documents, 4th ser., 229.

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navy entered the Baltic on numerous occasions in the eighteenth century with the object of protecting trade, the French fleet seldom entered those waters for any reason, rarely if ever in support of trade.14 Frenchmen, as owners of merchant ships, did not enjoy the financial benefits and relative security in European trade that a dominant navy could afford in wartime. But they contributed heavily to the support of the navy none the less. With remarkable candour, even for 1789, one high-ranking naval official in France gave it as his opinion that : merchant navigation, the means and the end of the royal navy, is in a state of relative servitude which should not exist between protector and protected and which obstructs the increase and prosperity of merchant commerce more than anything else. The system of prerogatives has added the superiority of a noble caste to the dignity of a military corps. . . . Actual dependence, increased by the force of opinion, has reduced merchant navigation to a state of inferiority, aggravated by other vices but perpetuated by this cause.15

Certainly the treatment accorded by the navy to the community of merchants and shippers reflected, not unnaturally, the restricted interests of naval officials and the hauteur of an officer caste that looked down, often with disdain and contempt, on the lowly arts of trade. Exemplifying this relationship between the services was the vastly hated and badly administered system of naval conscription, which throttled maritime enterprise, kept seafaring people, and others, in a state of servitude, and was responsible for a considerable migration of population away from the coasts as well as a continual exodus of sailors for service in foreign merchant marines.16 The navy's pre-emptive rights in French forests also had detri14 Albion, chap, iv, passim; Richmond, 103-6. In 1733-4 a French fleet went to the Baltic in support of Lesczynski, French candidate for the Polish throne. Two transports entered in 1776, and numerous other naval cargoships between 1783 and 1786 to carry masts and timber. On the first of these missions, the officers commanding were much concerned about proper salutes, "since up to the present no royal vessel has entered any Russian port." B1 83 (Marine) fol. 81. 15 Malouet, Mémoires, Preface, xiii. 16 "The sailors who served with good grace in the royal navy were rare. When, in the ports, the rumour of an impending levy of forces spread, the sailors hastened to flee; they passed to England and Holland, and there braved the edicts of recall. . . ." Jal, 10. Cf. "Doléances des marins" (parish of Lauriec) 3 April 1789, in Mémoires et documents, 9th ser., Appendix. 263-6.

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mental effects on the commercial marine, though the precise extent of their effects cannot be ascertained.17 By law, as we have seen, domestic timber trees standing 6 leagues from navigable rivers and 15 leagues from the sea were reserved for the navy. It was certainly impracticable for merchant shipbuilders to extract trees standing beyond those preserves because of the immense transportation costs involved. When forest law was enforced, merchant shipwrights had the choice of taking what was left in accessible forests after the most desirable trees had been marked as naval reserve, or of importing timber and masts from northern European or other foreign sources. In the former case they were likely to obtain inferior timber in poor assortments; in the latter, the cost of importation rendered their constructions less economical than those of many foreign builders, who were closer to the major sources of supply and whose compatriots, as we have seen, controlled the most important mast and timber markets. The saving grace in this situation for the French merchant shipbuilders was the fact that they were generally less exacting as to standards of quality than the navy, and hence could employ oak that the naval service would not use, as well as inferior substitutes.18 Viewed in terms of their total effect, the navy's pre-emptive rights in domestic forests became more damaging to the commercial shipbuilding industry in France as forests wrere depleted in the eighteenth century, and as those rights were enforced with progressively greater rigour and extended by successive amendments to forest law. Even in Colbert's day, when forests were still wellstocked, French commercial shipbuilders were "obliged" as Colbert informs us, "to seek in Norway and elsewhere in the north" for masts and timber, "because the king reserves all timber in the realm."19 To the extent that their costs were increased by the 17

The effects naturally varied with the effectiveness of forest-law enforcement both in different periods and in different localities. 18 Small merchant vessels were often built in part, or entirely, of pine, spruce, and other cheap woods. The navy and its contractors sold on the commercial market considerable quantities of oak deemed unsuited for naval use. Occasionally permission was given to merchant shipbuilders for cuts of first grade timber, most often to the Compagnie des Indes. D3 1 (Marine) fols. 5, 26; D3 14 (Marine) fols. 22-3. Such permission was not freely given, as is suggested by a decree of 1747 forbidding the use of timber suitable for naval purposes in the construction of privateers. 19 C 11 A. 2 (Colonies) Colbert to Talon, Versailles, 2 April 1666.

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necessity of importing foreign timber, French merchant shipbuilders were handicapped by the navy's priorities. But probably they could not have matched the economies of competitors like the Dutch even had there been plenty of low-cost ship timber for their use in France. "A ship cost twice as much in France as in Holland,"20 and the higher cost of timber and masts did not alone explain the difference. All construction materials purchased abroad by the French—iron, tar, hemp, and timber— "were excessively dear."21 Furthermore, the prevailing rates of interest on capital were generally much higher in eighteenth-century France than in England and the United Provinces.22 In shipbuilding, said Forbonnais: "the Hollander who pays interest at 3 per cent will be content to earn 6, whereas the Frenchman will be forced to seek 10 per cent at least, because he pays interest at 5 or 6. Northern timber, with which both construct their ships, will therefore cost 4 per cent less for the Dutch than for the French."23 One can add that many of the orderly, labour-saving techniques commonly practised at Dutch shipbuilding yards in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were neglected in French merchant yards, in spite of Colbert's attempts to "gently introduce the economical use of wood and the uninterrupted application to work that the Dutch have and the French have not."24 "Little by little," as Charliat observes, "the traditions of Dutch shipwrights, brought by Colbert to the navy yards and commercial ports at great cost, were lost."25 Until at least the middle of the eighteenth century, furthermore, the hulls of French-built merchantmen, "in the unanimous opinion of technicians, left much to be desired";26 they were generally inferior to the Dutch in cargo capacity per ship-ton. Dutch flutes were better adapted to the trade in bulk commodities, and of course timber and masts were among those bulk commodities that predominated in northern trade. The advantages of lower price and more efficient commercial 2

°Lavisse, VII, fasc. 3, 234. ^Ibid. 22 Charliat, Trots sitcles, 53, 58. 23 Forbonnais, I, 426. Cf. Barbour, Capitalism in Amsterdam. 80-3, 85-8. 22 On 32 cargoes delivered to Brest in 1786, aggregating 208,314 cubic feet, the freight amounted to 382 thousand livres. D3 8 (Marine) fol. 264.

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during the recent war, when shipping rates were at their usual wartime highs: in 1779, an entrepreneur had offered to deliver timber from Glückstadt, near Hamburg, for 30 sous the cubic foot plus insurance at 5 per cent.53 There were said to be two reasons for the high cost of the Company's shipping operations: its ships, "by construction and design" were "not proper for shipments of timber";54 and to this disadvantage, if we are to believe Arnould, the procedures of the Company added a second handicap. Its ships sailed from Hamburg to Brest with timber, then returned direct to Hamburg in ballast, without taking commercial cargo on the northward passage.55 It is evident that the directors of the Company must have made efforts, in the interest of profit, to obtain freight from merchants at Nantes, Le Havre, and Bordeaux, whose exports required the services of hundreds of ships a year. Perhaps the Dutch and other northern carriers took steps to ensure that such cargo would not be available to the Company's ships or, if freighted by the Company, could find no market in the north. In any case, the advantage of subsidies and duty-free victuals was more than offset by the inefficiency of the Company's operations. Foreign shippers, the Dutch in particular, offered to carry the navy's northern imports "at a much more advantageous price."56 The directors of the French Company claimed, perhaps rightly, that "the price reductions offered by the foreigners . . . [were] but a momentary artifice," a manœuvre designed to lure the navy from the Company and deprive the latter of its contract.57 The navy was seduced. It was on the ground that the Company's freight rates were excessively high that the navy cancelled its contract on 3 November S3B1 92 (Marine) fol. 105. Before the war (1776), freight for a large Dutch ship carrying masts from St. Petersburg to Rochefort. at least three times the distance from Hamburg to Brest, was estimated at 11,130 livres, considerably less than the average of 11,949 livres for 32 cargoes of Company freight in 1786. 84B3 794 (Marine) fol. 276. '^Arnould, II, 34-5. 56 The Company claimed, however, that the offers of foreign shippers were not as advantageous as they superficially appeared, because of differences between the wood volume of the French last and the last of Amsterdam, the latter being reduced by one-third, according to the Company's directors, when wood transport was involved. B3 794 (Marine) fol. 265. ^Ibid.

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1786, and reverted to the practice of dealing with the shipper who made the lowest bid. Since French vessels, even with the subsidies, could not hope to match the rates of many foreign carriers, the navy's action was tantamount to excluding French ships from the carriage of naval timber. Cancellation of the contract meant the death of the Company. In April 1788 the directors were trying to sell the ships, which had been inactive since the contract was cancelled 18 months before.59 During the few years when the Company's ships were replacing those of the Dutch, some of the navy's own gab are s likewise doubled for foreign carriers. Navy-owned cargo vessels, flûtes and gabares, had long been used in the timber traffic along French coasts, but almost never in northern seas. In what may have been the first such expedition, two gabares had been sent to the Baltic in 1776, one to Riga and one to St. Petersburg, to pick up cargoes of masts and to give French naval officers experience in northern navigation.60 The training of officers also appears to have been at least part of the navy's intention after 1783, when a few more French naval vessels appeared at Baltic ports to pick up cargo.61 Six royal gabares left Riga as a squadron in June 1783 with cargoes of naval stores; others were dispatched from France in company with commercial vessels in 1784.62 At least 13 more were sent during 1785-6,63 on what appears to have been the last of these unusual expeditions during the ancien régime. Thereafter, the navy's northern stores were again freighted almost entirely in foreign ships.64 58B3 794 (Marine) fols. 278, 284. It is conceivable that the cancellation was related to the extraordinarily bitter relations then subsisting between the navy and the finance departments over naval expenditure. **Ibid.. fol. 279. SOB* 83 (Marine) fol. 81. 61 It is uncertain whether or not the navy sent royal vessels with the intention of avoiding payment of duties exacted on merchant vessels at Russian ports. In any case, the question of immunity for royal vessels was posed on each of the annual visits between 1783 and 1786, with disputes of varying seriousness on each occasion. Segur, II, 315-16, 369, 421-2. 62 B5 23 (Marine) "Mouvements des Gabares"; B7 448 (Marine) Memoir of Lt. Clonard, Commandant of the Gabare Division sent to the Baltic in 1784, dated 19 December 1784; 1A1 93 (Toulon) Castries to Fabry, 31 August 1783. 63 5 B 26 (Marine) and B5 28 (Marine) "Etats des flûtes, gabares et autres bâtiments." 64B3 794 (Marine) fols. 284-5; Arnould, II, 34-5; Arnauné, 35. In 1788 directors of the Compagnie Française du Nord, then languishing, objected

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The use of foreign ships for freighting naval stores, a matter of choice by the navy in peacetime, became a very real necessity in times of war. The outbreak of hostilities usually found the dockyards with pitifully small reserves of materiel on hand to refit old ships and build the new vessels whose construction peacetime budgets had not allowed. Except for privateers, French shipping disappeared entirely from the sea lanes north of Brittany, and as has been shown,65 it became perilous to move timber to the dockyards from river entrepôts even when the departures of merchantmen and royal carriers were timed with the sailings of men-of-war. The services of trafficking neutrals became indispensable in the North Sea and Baltic if masts were to be shipped to France. The wartime traffic in shipbuilding materials naturally gave rise to bitter disputes between England, on the one hand, and the neutral producers and carriers of such stores on the other. England's interests were ill-served when masts and plank for building enemy naval vessels were freighted past her coasts, through waters she could control. "If a Dutch ship carries masts, another anchors, another sails, another a ship's frame, a whole fleet may go by detail from Holland to the King of France."66 Naval stores, in the English view, were just as rightly contraband as arms and ammunition, and the practice of seizing vessels so laden was old. Even in the sixteenth century, "tall ships ladden with masts" bound for France had been seized by the English and brought into Dover.67 Naturally, the Scandinavians, Dutch, and other producers and carriers opposed such seizures. Hence at the end of the seventeenth century, when there was general acceptance of the idea that weapons and munitions could rightly be seized, there were sharp differences of bitterly to the navy's using foreign ships when French ones were available. Apparently this sort of grievance was more distinctly heard by the authorities the following year (1789), when M. le Comte de la Luzerne, Secretary of State for the Navy, made known that he accepted the principle of using ships built, owned, and manned by Frenchmen when available for carrying timber. He offered a subsidy of 2 sous the cubic foot on timber brought from Hamburg by French ships, but adhered to traditional practice in specifying that French shippers must "agree to the price and conditions of freight offered by foreigners." French shippers were in no better position to meet this requirement then than in earlier years. Two sous the cubic foot, an increase of perhaps 10 per cent over established subsidies, would not enable them to compete effectively with Hollanders. B3 794 (Marine) fols. 264-85; Mémoires et documents, 4th ser., 240-2. ««Chap, iv above. «GAlbion, 187. ^Albion, 184.

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opinion as to whether or not naval stores should be classed as contraband.68 Hemp and timber, it was contended, had many unwarlike uses; ship timber, masts, and other stores were used for merchantmen in greater volume than for men-of-war.69 England's practice of seizure and the bitter objections of the carriers were alike supported by pretensions to custom and law ; yet each weakened its stand by inconsistency. England, for example, departed from her usual policy by signing a treaty with the Dutch in 1674, and another with the Russians in 1734 (renewed in 1766) which excluded naval stores from the lists of contraband.70 The Dutch, while usually holding for the exclusion of shipbuilding stores from the lists of contraband, were a party to wholesale seizures of Danish and Swedish ships supplying France during the War of the League of Augsburg,71 showing themselves especially anxious to seize the ships of Hamburg merchants who were their competitors in trade.72 At the opening of the eighteenth century, the simultaneous but separate Northern and Spanish Succession struggles gave the lie to legal pretensions on every side. As G. N. Clark observed, a "comedy of contradictions" could hardly fail to ensue when every state in Europe was at the same time both a belligerent and a neutral. "The powers which were neutrals in one war were belligerents in the other so that arguments used to justify their rights in relation to seaborne trade had to be framed to meet the unusual condition that those to whom they were addressed would be able to turn them against their authors in the simultaneous controversy in which the roles of belligerent and neutral were reversed."73 In so far as any broad principle of international law was con68

Jessup and Deák, 545. Albion, 186-99 passim. Wlbid., 187-9; Jessup and Deák, 333-48 passim-, Pares, Colonial Blockade, 231 (note), 232-4, 240-1, and chaps, in-iv passim. A secret article in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty weakened the definition of contraband, and the Dutch position, by stipulating that neither party would furnish to the enemy "any other things necessary for making war." 71 Clark, 117, chap, v passim. ™Ibid., 88-9. During the War of Austrian Succession, "when the States General drifted into something like war with France in the winter of 1747, they were most anxious for an agreement with England to stop other neutrals from supplying France with naval stores." Pares, Colonial Blockade, 231 (note). raClark, 70. 69

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cerned, the status of naval stores as contraband remained doubtful even at the end of the old régime. The contradictory mass of treaties, edicts, and court decisions, on which the pretensions of England, France, and the neutrals purported to be based, could supply ample precedent either for releasing or condemning cargoes of timber. But wartime practice in admiralty courts supplied decisiveness, if not consistency. Ships carrying naval stores to France ran great risk of condemnation in British admiralty courts. The power of her navy usually enabled England to impose upon the neutrals a definition of contraband consistent with British interests; objections by the neutrals could be effective only in proportion to their ability, individually or collectively, to retaliate. All neutral shippers trafficking with France encountered progressively greater difficulties as the firmness of British policies with regard to seizure increased during the eighteenth century, but the Dutch felt the effects more belatedly than their competitors. As England's more or less refractory ally, the United Provinces shielded themselves from the full effects of England's policy from 1678 until the middle of the eighteenth century. The Dutch commitment under the terms of the Treaty of Westminster (1678; renewed 1685) to support the British with troops74 was useful as a lever to obtain at least partial English acquiescence in the terms of the earlier Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1674, which had defined naval stores as non-contraband.75 Thus in the War of Austrian Succession, instructions issued to British privateers in 1744 ordered seizures of Danish, Swedish, and other neutral ships carrying naval stores, but specifically excepted Dutch ships.76 Although the orders issued the next year, 1745, decreed seizure of all neutral ships, including Dutch, Britain trod more softly on the Hollanders than on other neutral carriers, in the expectation that they could be brought into the war as allies.77 The Dutch finally did enter the struggle against France, but not before they had carried on several years of profitable trade with their enemy-to-be, a traffic bitterly 74Clark, 37. 75 Jessup and Deák, 338. 76 Instruction printed in Marsden, II, 428-9. 77 Only the Russians enjoyed more favourable treatment than the Dutch; Russian privilege derived from the Treaty of 1734 which conferred great advantages on British merchants, advantages which might be lost if Russian ships were maltreated.

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denounced by the British admiralty. 78 But in the next succeeding war, the Seven Years' War, the Dutch did not enjoy such leniency at English hands. The cost of half-hearted support from the Dutch under the Treaty of 1678 came much too high, from the British point of view, when bought at the cost of observing the terms of the Treaty of 1674. In the Seven Years' War, the British were determined that the Dutch would be called upon at the outset to fulfil their obligations under the agreement of 1678; failing that, the Treaty of 1674 would not be honoured on the British side.79 Neither treaty was, in fact, observed. This proved an especially bitter blow to the merchants at Amsterdam, who were "deeply interested in the contracts for supplying France with naval stores . . . nobody more so than Mr. Hope."80 Dutch merchants found themselves reduced, at last, to a par with the Hanseats, the Danes, and Swedes, all of whom suffered by and complained of the growing rigour of British policy. Like other neutral carriers, the Dutch sustained serious losses in wartime trade between 1756-8. Nevertheless, they were active in both the Baltic and coastal traffic, freighting stores to French dockyards whenever possible.81 Though their trade was perforce suspended in the years 1758-60, when blockading British squadrons deployed along the coasts of France, the traffic was resumed in 1762 when the British turned on Spain, leaving the lowly carriers of masts and timber greater freedom of activity.82 The northern neutrals encountered their greatest opportunities and their greatest difficulties in the carriage of naval stores during the war of 1778-83. The opportunities then consisted in the fact that France, for the first time devoting the bulk of her energies to the maritime struggle, was willing to pay very dearly for northern stores. The difficulties lay in the determination of the hard-pressed 78Pares, Colonial Blockade, 233, 240-1. 79/feid., 242 seq. 80 /6iJ.? 247. Hope and Company then held large contracts for deliveries of masts to France. 81 3 D 1 (Marine) Hocquart to minister, 17 July 1758. 82 Inventories for Brest (June, August, September, and December 1762) and for Toulon (December 1762) indicate that importations from the north were received that year, but in quantities insufficient to satisfy requirements for constructions under way. B5 4 (Marine) Inventories. Commercial favours bestowed on the Dutch after the war encouraged revival of the traffic in naval stores. Pares. Colonial Blockade, 253, 254-5 (notes).

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English to interrupt contraband shipments to France even at the cost of arousing a host of new enemies. After the outbreak of war in Europe in 1778, England issued orders for the seizure of all neutral ships carrying contraband. In August of that year it was reported that Dutch ships were loading such stores at St. Petersburg, and by September British cruisers were "bringing victims into English ports."83 In October, following bitter protests by the Dutch and Russian envoys in London, Britain released all neutral ships " 'except such as have Naval or warlike stores on board destined for French ports or for the use of the Rebellious Subjects in North America.' "84 Such cargoes were purchased by the British admiralty, "primarily to injure the French dockyards rather than to help the English."85 By the middle of January 1779 more than a hundred ships laden with naval stores were being detained in England.86 It was always a blow to the pride of neutrals to have their flags humbled and their claims to neutral rights ignored, but it was still more unpalatable to have their expectations of wartime profit blighted. Neutrals habitually looked forward to maritime wars, "not with dismay and apprehension, but with hope and anticipation of the fruits of the trade."87 Sweden and Denmark-Norway had specially prepared, in the interbellum period after 1763, to take full advantage of trade and shipping opportunities in the next maritime war.88 England's seizures therefore dealt them a heavy blow, and the blow was hardly softened by the fact that the British often paid for the cargoes their cruisers brought in, for the prices they paid for naval stores were much below those obtainable in France. Moreover, the detention of ships caused long delays and substantial losses in freight. The French had reason to hope, in 1778, that the United Provinces would provide armed escort for their ships, and the Due de Vauguyon, French ambassador at The Hague, used his powers of persuasion and intrigue to forward that possibility.89 But early in November 1778, French naval officials were informed that "the 83 Albion, 189. **Ibid., 189. szibid., 189-90. "Unfortunately for the Royal Navy, the detained cargoes contained few of the great masts which were needed so sorely in England" (190). s«/6iW., 190. "Kulsrud, 323-4. $»Ibid. ^Coquette, 229-35.

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States General cedes to the insistence of the English, refusing convoys to Dutch ships laden with cargoes of masts and timber for French ports."90 In consequence, the French ordered that shipments of stores, including much-needed masts en route from the Baltic, be disembarked at the Texel Seizure was deemed virtually certain if such cargoes were allowed to proceed.91 In January 1779 the Dutch, though divided among themselves, still declined to give convoy protection to naval stores. Nor were they encouraged to do so when the British made known that resistance to search would be met by force.92 Many shippers declined to take the risk without protection. Large quantities of ship timber destined for France piled up in timber yards at Hamburg in 1779 because shipping was not available. A vague hope was entertained in September 1779 that the Hamburg timber could be taken in rafts to Gluckstadt and thence shipped to France the following May under escort by Danish frigates, but this interesting proposition did not materialize.93 More substantial were the frequent sailings of heavily laden Dutch ships northward from Bayonne to Rochefort, and even to Nantes, freighted with Pyrenees masts and spars, and with timber gathered from the southwestern provinces.94 These supplies, which the minister recommended be freighted only on the ships of Amsterdam and Haarlem,95 replenished Rochefort's stocks of masts and made possible mast shipments to the West Indies in December 1780.96 But the desperate shortage at Brest could not thus be relieved. Brest was suffering as badly as in the Seven Years' War, and in 1779-80 could only expect relief from the north. But the northern sea lanes were all but closed by 1779, and the diplomatic efforts of Vergennes then gave little ground for encouragement. Neutral flags afforded little or no protection, and it 90 1 B 85 (Marine) fol. 279. Similar action had been taken by the Dutch late in the Seven Years' War. B7 414 (Marine) letter dated Amsterdam, 7 October 1762. 91 B! 85 (Marine) fol. 279; fil 88 (Marine) fol. 198. 92 Albion, 191. 93B1 92 (Marine) fols. 9, 83, 105, 118, 149. After the Anglo-Dutch agreement of July 1780, the export of Norwegian naval stores to France (ordinarily tar and plank) ceased entirely. B7 445 (Marine) memoir of M. Chezaulz, Consul at Bergen, Norway, February 1782. 941E 213 (Rochefort) fols. 71, 78-9; IE 215 (Rochefort) fol. 20. í> r >lE 213 (Rochefort) fol. 103. »«1E 216 (Rochefort) fol. 215.

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appeared that the northern powers could not be induced to oppose British seizures actively. As a penalty for their recalcitrance in this respect, Dutch merchants, except those of Amsterdam and Haarlem, had already been deprived of many commercial rights in France, and heavy disabilities had been imposed on their commercial operations at French ports, but without avail.97 The States General rejected a French suggestion that the ships of Paul Jones, which were at the Texel in the fall of 1779, could be employed as escort.98 There was some hope in the navy department that Sweden might be moved to take a more aggressive attitude in defence of her neutral rights, but even this faint hope was lost when the French ambassador at Stockholm, the Comte d'Usson, advised that the Court of Sweden had "not firmly decided to sustain its rights against the [English] tyranny."99 Among the Hollanders, notably the merchants of Amsterdam and Haarlem, the French had partisans who actively sought convoy protection for Dutch carriers of naval stores; but other merchant groups, and the Anglophile Stadholder interests, were opposed. They held that all shipping and seaborne trade would be jeopardized if convey protection was given to ships laden with naval stores. Active resistance to British seizures, it was said, might well mean war.100 In accordance with the Stadholder's proposal of 1778, merchant vessels carrying naval stores to France were excluded from Dutch convoys and forced to sail independently if at all.101 With a view to evading this prudent policy of the Dutch, the Duc de Vauguyon suggested to Vergennes in September 1779 that "ships loaded with our naval stores ought to time their departure to coincide with the sailing of the convoys. Without being formally admitted to the convoy, they will enjoy its protection since it follows an identical route."102 This risky scheme, communicated by Vergennes to the navy, was apparently approved. In early January 1780, a large convoy left the Texel under the escort of Dutch menof-war, closely followed by numerous "hangers-on" laden with naval stores.103 Unhappily, the convoy fell in with a British squadron, but in the darkness which closed over the late afternoon 9

7Coquelle, 232, 237; Piggott and Omond, 108-10, 142-3, 150-1. Reussner, 24. "B3 673 (Marine) fols. 60-1. °Coquelle, 231-2. ™llbid. 102B* 673 (Marine) fols. 66-7. ^Renault, 312. 98

10

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encounter, many Dutch ships escaped to the near-by French ports, "among them a goodly number which had feigned association with the convoy while charged with contraband, especially wood."104 After a perfunctory exchange of fire between the Dutch and English men-of-war the following morning, Dutch merchantmen and warships were unceremoniously conducted to Portsmouth.105 On the heels of this incident, early in 1780, the Stadholder and States General ordered convoy protection for Dutch vessels laden with timber and masts for France.106 But it was already apparent that even armed convoys did not assure the transit of such cargoes to France. Seizures of Dutch ships continued, and by April 1781 "some 1,100 masts had been captured by the enemy aboard Dutch ships.55107 Meanwhile neutral ships under other flags, Swedish, Danish, and Prussian, were accumulating grievances as England gradually tightened her net. Angered, they were urged to active opposition by the French, who suggested that the only means by which their interest could be secured was to provide convoy protection for all their ships. Successful seizures by British cruisers, the long detention of ships in English ports, and the decisions handed down by admiralty courts played directly into the hands of the French; Vergennes' long-nurtured scheme for a league of armed neutrality was about to become reality. The dispersion of England's sea powrer over the vast Atlantic theatre of war, and the imposing strength of the allied powers who challenged her mastery, went far toward convincing neutrals that the concerted action the French proposed, which had been tried before with little effect,108 might this time prove a success. The Russian Declaration of 28 February 1780 became the basis of concerted formal protest. One by one the maritime neutrals accepted Russia's lead and adhered as members of a League of Armed Neutrality. Had the Czarina's Declaration been framed and phrased by Vergennes himself, it could hardly have supported French interests more explicitly. "Neutral vessels,55 said the Declaration, "may navigate freely from port to port and along the ™*Ibid., 312; Coquelle, 236. iOBCoquelle, 236. iWIbid., 236-7. By an arrêt du conseil of 22 April 1780, France revoked the disabling legislation and restored to the Dutch their privileges in French trade. 10 ?Reussner, 24. 108 Kulsrud (295-337) surveys some earlier "armed neutralities."

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109

coasts of the nationals at war." Shipbuilding materials of all kinds, whether neutral property or not, were declared non-contraband and exempt from seizure when carried on neutral ships.110 The northern powers gathered their fleets to enforce the Declaration.111 England, hard-pressed by numerous enemies, could not openly oppose this League in which the producers of naval stores, on which she herself depended, played the leading role. Instead, she 4 'avoided the issue as far as possible," but made "a few concessions to Russia, the most threatening member of the coalition."112 Instructions to the commanders of British privateers, issued in December 1780, enjoined the "strictest observance" of the AngloRussian Treaty of 1766,113 and in 1781, when Catherine II became indignant over the fact that Russian ships were searched at all, she was officially assured that "ships carrying her flag were barely visited ; and although they were laden universally with naval stores, all evidently destined for the service of our enemies, yet they were never taken notice of by our Courts of Admiralty, and the most profuse damages were paid, if their short detention had been attended by any detriment."114 Less influential adherents to the League were treated with less consideration; "the seizure of cargoes under the flags of the smaller neutrals went on steadily."115 Even the League of Armed Neutrality did not assure the transit of naval stores to France. Genoese merchants succeeded in getting a few Baltic masts to Toulon, via Genoa, in 1780 and again in 17823116 and other shippers brought an occasional cargo through the beehive of North Sea privateers and cruisers, but such evasions were not numerous in 1780 and 1781.117 Only Russian ships were immune to seizure, and they were comparatively few in number before 1782, notwithstanding the adoption of the Russian flag by certain French and foreign shippers.118 The small supplies of stores 3

°9Scott, 274, 641-2. u*Ibid. "iAlbion, 192. Mlbid. "«Scott, 342. 114 Quoted by Albion, 193. Cf. Piggott and Omond, 284 (note). ^Albion, 193. 116 lAi 91 (Toulon) Castries to Possel, 28 February 1782; 1A1 134 (Toulon) "Etat de la Recette des Mâts du Nord," 25 October 1780; Albion, 193-4. "ïReussner, 25. 118 French ships, under the Russian flag, left Marseille, Bordeaux, Cette, and Le Havre for northern ports after formation of the League of Armed Neutrality, apparently under the auspices of a Compagnie du Traité de Russie, organized at Bordeaux. Barrey, 15.

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arriving on neutral ships, even when supplemented by the product of the navy's frantic exploitations in the Pyrenees/19 were insufficient to keep the French fleet of 80 ships-of-the-line, and as many lesser vessels, in fighting trim. In midsummer of 1780 the navy was hard-pressed for masts. It was evident that the unco-ordinated action of the members of the League of Armed Neutrality, still only partly formed, could not be depended upon.120 By July the Secretary of State for the Navy had already despaired of the usefulness of neutral ships.121 Many hundreds of French-owned masts were then lying at Amsterdam or the Texel, and any effort to ship them to France on neutral ships would mean almost certain loss. Shipment by sea being impracticable, the minister decided in mid-1780 to attempt to bring these masts from Amsterdam by a labyrinthine inland canal and river route. Although inland shipment appeared to defy "all the rules of sane economy,"122 the pressing needs of the construction yards called for drastic innovation. Since canal and river passage from the Low Countries had not been attempted before,123 many novel difficulties interposed. The Schelde had to be enlarged at Cambrai, the route from Cambrai to Saint-Quentin required repairs, and the canals from the Loing to Orléans, which were customarily closed from late July until the first of November each year, had to be opened to traffic. Arrangements had to be made to have floaters, drivers with vehicles and teams, and crews of workmen at various points along the route.124 119

Most of the masts and plank taken from the depleted Pyrenees forests appear to have been shipped, with much difficulty and delay, to the relatively near-by port of Rochefort. IE 213 (Rochefort) fols. 71, 78-9, 103; IE 215 (Rochefort) fols. 24, 41, 88; IE 218 (Rochefort) passim. 120 Denmark-Norway acceded to a convention of armed neutrality with Russia on 9 July 1780, but only after having signed with England, on 4 July 1780, an agreement recognizing naval stores as contraband and stipulating that contraband would not be supplied to an enemy of either signatory. Certainly this arrangement did not promise much relief to French dockyards. Sweden joined the League soon after Denmark, but adherence of the other powers was long delayed. The processes of neutral diplomacy were much too slow to authorize much hope of help from neutral shipping. The declarations and conventions are printed in Scott, 295-6, 299, 397-405, 420-3, and passim. i2iReussner, 24. i^Ibid., 25. 123 Inland shipment would only have been possible during the Seven Years' War, since Austria's benevolent neutrality, or belligerency on the French side, was a prerequisite. The writer has found no evidence that such shipment was 124 attempted in that war. Reussner, 25.

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The itinerary adopted, after some hesitations, was that of the Holland canals and the Escaut by Dordrecht and Gand to Cambrai (only as far as Bouchain for very large masts, because the Escaut narrowed at Cambrai . . .), then by the Cambrai-Saint-Quentin route, by the Crozat Canal between Saint-Quentin and Chauny, by the Oise and the Seine to the river port of Saint-Mammès near Fontainebleau, by the canals of the Loing and Orléans, and finally by the Loire to Paimbœuf, where the trains of masts had to be [broken up and] embarked on royal gab are s for distribution to Brest, Lorient, and Rochefort.125

The project involved enormous costs/26 but it produced highly satisfactory results. Nearly 2,000 masts traversed this route between 1781 and 1783, and at Brest naval administrators ceased their complaints that masts were in short supply.127 The initiative of the navy in opening this unorthodox inland route of shipment brought to the dockyards masts that could not have been transported safely by the much-vaunted, but relatively ineffective, League of Armed Neutrality. But as a means of dealing with the problem of communications in the north, the inland-shipment operation was a mere expedient for which the way was temporarily prepared by the Diplomatic Revolution. Obviously, canal and river shipments from Amsterdam and Paimbœuf were practicable only when both Austria and the United Provinces were benevolent neutrals or allies. Such circumstances prevailed only during the last two wars waged by France in the ancien régime. wibîd. 2Q

l' Ibid. In 1781, the navy was indebted to the extent of 600 thousand livres to a Brussels merchant, Romberg, who had contracted to supply men and matériel for the actual transit of masts. E. 205 (Marine) "Dépenses par Apperçu de l'année 1781." 127-Reussner, 25; IE 218 (Rochefort) fols. 35-6.

CHAPTER TEN

Black Sea and North American Markets after 1776

BY 1770, the outlook for France was bleak. She had never fully appreciated the possibilities of Canadian forests, and in any case they were denied her after 1763. Her own forests still supplied much good oak timber, but few good masts. She seemed destined to permanent dependence on the Baltic market for naval stores, a dependence all the more irksome now that many of the masts it supplied were mediocre and in poor assortments, and that wellfounded rumours told of badly depleted forests and worse difficulties in store. This sombre prospect was dissipated unexpectedly in the mid1770's by the rebellion of Britain's Thirteen Colonies. The Revolution opened to France a new source of masts, offering pine that were at least the equals of northern fir. For well over a century the pine forests of New England had provided excellent masts of extraordinary size for British naval use. Under a virtual monopoly, imports of masts from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine had gradually increased in volume until, on the eve of the American Revolution, they constituted about one-third of the navy's needs. The colonists had long-nurtured grievances against this pre-emption of their trees. At the outbreak of the rebellion, the forests were abruptly closed to the British navy. France, however, could not take advantage of the opportunity to gain by Britain's loss until the colonists avowed independence as the object of their struggle. Even after the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the French pretence of non-intervention in Britain's imperial affairs and the surveillance of the British navy in North American waters prevented the opening of this new trade

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in masts. American merchants, between 1776 and 1778, showed considerable interest in the possibility of such a traffic, but as Silas Deane, the American Commissioner, observed in November 1776, "few are disposed to venture until the close of this campaign."1 The "campaign" was not concluded until 1783. Although the treaties of alliance and commerce of 1778 removed the diplomatic barriers to traffic in masts between France and North America and actually constituted an invitation to the French navy to draw from Britain's erstwhile forest preserves, the naval war in American waters made it difficult for France to accept that invitation and still more difficult for American merchants to assume the risk of shipping masts to France. Nevertheless, the war period did produce some correspondence, some negotiation, and at least one contract between the French navy and merchants of American naval stores. Between 1778 and 1780 the navy received several propositions from New England merchants. One such offer came in 1778 from John Langdon, merchant of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who offered to furnish masts at a commission of 5 per cent.2 "The British Navy," Langdon urged, "were in most Part furnished with Masts from this Port. I have lately furnished the Count d'Estaing's Squadron with all their Masts."3 A second enterprising Portsmouth merchant, Gardner, addressed the navy at about the same time with similar offers. At least one further proposal was received in the summer of 1780 when J. Loring Austin visited France in an effort to obtain a loan of £,150 thousand for the state of Massachusetts. Austin offered to secure and repay the proposed loan with deliveries of masts.4 None of these offers was accepted. In 1780, when Austin's proposals were made, the execution of a contract for North American masts was impossible because of the risks involved in transatlantic shipment; the offers from Langdon and Gardner were declined on the strength of an earlier proposition by M. Le Ray de Chaumont.5 Chaumont, "a man of large affairs and a contractor of note,"6 ]

Force, III, col. 883. B7 459 (Marine), letter from Franklin, Lee, and Adams dated Passy, 25 December 1778, transmitting Langdon's letter, dated Portsmouth, 21 October 1778. ^Ibid. With regard to the Comte d'Estaing, see note 17 below. 4 B* 172 (Marine) fols. 306-7. R Bi 92 (Marine) fols. 5. 8. «Abernethy, 478. 2

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was a partner of Silas Deane. Sometime before December 1778, Deane, Chaumont, and their associates offered to supply the navy with masts from Maine.7 Gabriel de Sartine, then Secretary of State for the Navy, was favourably disposed to their offers8 and, when later offers were received from Langdon and other American merchants, he indicated his intention to deal exclusively with Deane and Chaumont.9 In mid-December 1778, Sartine sent Chaumont the draft of a contract, asking him "to propose prices appearing suitable to the interests of the Company and the king," but as late as 27 February 1779, Sartine had had no response.10 This and the later delays in contract negotiations were probably occasioned by the necessity, on the part of Deane and Chaumont, of communicating with America.11 In any case, the associates, Chaumont, Deane, and Duer, were not actually offered a contract until the summer of 1780, when the navy agreed to the terms proposed "on condition that the first three cargoes pass examination.5'12 Since, as Deane himself remarked, convoys were not then available, no cargoes could be brought to France, "even if they could be procured in America."13 It was apparent that the execution of the con7 B! 92 (Marine) fol. 8; Duer Papers, Letterbook on Duer Timber Contracts, 1774-8; Deane Papers, V, 132-3, Deane to Le Ray de Chaumont, 28 February 1783. 8 The Chaumont-Deane enterprise had the "approbation" of Conrad Gérard, Chief Secretary to Vergennes and French Minister to America, who "recommended it to the ministers." Deane Papers, V, 140-1, Deane to John Jay, 28 February 1783, and V, 205-6, Deane to Robert Morris, 19 October 1783. »Bi 92 (Marine) fol. 5. Wbid. ^Colonel William Duer of New York, who had contracted to supply the British navy with masts in 1768, and had negotiated for another contract of the same sort as late as 1774, was one of the principal partners in America. James Wilson and Mark Bird, both of Pennsylvania, were also associated with the enterprise. The associates negotiated, through Deane, with Spain, as well as with France, for the sale of masts. Duer Papers, Letterbook on Duer Timber Contracts, 1774-8; Deane Papers, IV, 168, passim, Deane to William Duer, 4 June 1780; Davis, 113-20. *2Deane Papers, IV, 190, Deane to William Duer, 23 August 1780, and V, 316-17, Deane to James Wilson, 11 May 1781. 13/fcid., V, 316-17, Deane to James Wilson, 11 May 1781. In expressing doubt whether masts could be procured from America, Deane was probably referring to the difficulty of obtaining masts from Maine (where he and his associates intended to buy their supplies) after Falmouth (Portland) was burned in 1775, or while a British garrison was established at Penobscot Bay (Castine was occupied, 1779-83).

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41

tract would have to await the end of hostilities. Chaumont and Deane made no deliveries to French naval dockyards during (or after) the war,35 and there is evidence for believing that no shipment of American masts reached French navy yards from any source before the end of the war.16 The only American timber and masts employed by the French navy during the war appear to have been those occasionally used to refit vessels damaged during campaigns in American waters.17 French arsenals derived little or no direct benefit, before 1783, from the dissolution of Britain's monopoly of North American forests. The war period did very little to dispel the almost total ignorance then prevailing among naval officials in France concerning the quality of forest resources open to exploitation in America. The experts at French dockyards had little or no opportunity to inspect American masts and compare them with those from other sources. Occasionally, vessels arrived at French arsenals equipped with American masts or spars, but the inspection of a few isolated vessels 14 "The mast contract," wrote Deane in September 1780, "may be relied upon, but . . . it will be of no purpose to expend more money on the subject until the peace." Deane Papers, IV. 235, Deane to William Duer, 28 September 1780. 15 After the war Silas Deane, who had advanced large sums to Chaumont, Duer, and James Wilson, sought desperately to encourage his partners to execute the contract or repay his advances, but the financial embarrassment of Ghaumont and the estrangement of Dyer, who, significantly, helped to attach opprobrium to Deane, thwarted the latter's efforts. There appears to have been no opposition in 1783 on the part of Castries (Minister of the Navy), to execution of the contract on the terms arranged in 1780 by his ministerial predecessor. 16 After the war, port officials at Brest, Rochefort, and Toulon engaged in a rather heated verbal struggle, some declaring themselves for and most declaring opposition to the employment of American masts received during the war; and their failure to make any reference to wartime receipts, coupled with their allusions to masts received long before the war, seem to indicate that none arrived at the naval dockyards during the years 1778-83. 17 Several of the Comte d'Estaing's ships-of-the-line were remasted at Boston in the fall of 1778 (only one with an American mast), and several other French naval vessels appear to have been refitted at that port later in the war. "Rapport du Comte d'Estaing," dated 5 November 1778, in Doniol, III, 459. Three cargoes of masts and other naval stores were prepared at Boston for shipment in 1782, but they were destined for the West Indies. B? 460 (Marine), Letombe to Castries, 15 and 30 June 1782. Albion found evidence that 3 cargoes of masts were shipped from Portsmouth to France between 1775 and 1777; our evidence seems to authorize the conjecture that those shipments went to French commercial ports. Albion, 278.

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could scarcely serve as a basis for judging the products of millions of acres of American forest. In the post-war period, a few French naval officials, aware of their own ignorance and interested in the potentialities of the new American source of supply, urged the acquisition of more definite information concerning the quality and cost of American masts and the possibilities of contracting for deliveries.18 Castries, Minister of the Navy from 1780 to 1786, was among those most actively interested in these possibilities; he sought information with vigour and hoped that Britain's former colonies might supply not only masts but also curved timber and knees which were becoming very rare in French forests.19 Writing to French consuls in America in 1784, the minister ordered that information be sent to France concerning tie quality of naval stores available and the possibilities for exploitation. In reply, he was informed by one consul that "many of the provinces of North America produce, at much lower cost, masts of quality and dimensions comparable to the finest Russian masts."20 The reports of the consuls were varied, some optimistic and some pessimistic, but their responses were of a general nature, ill- calculated to provide the detail the minister sought. The consuls were not experts on timber and masts. In the summer of 1784, Castries also asked for help from the intendants and commandants of the ports. "You are aware," he wrote, "of the advantages of profiting from the [American] resources if they are really as valuable as they appear to be." He solicited "any exact information on the subject" of American naval stores and urged the dockyard officials to make known their "opinions on the quality of American masts."21 The administrators of the dockyards were, in general, unfavourably predisposed toward masts from America, a fact of which Castries was forewarned. Reports from the dockyards confirmed the prognostication, expressing the conviction that the masts available in America were of inferior quality and a very dubious resource. 1SR1 99 (Marine), fol. 29; D3 10 (Marine), fols. 96-7; 1A* 9* (Marine: Toulon), fols. 132-3, 360. 191E 229 (Marine: Rochefort), fols. 132-3; 1A* 94 (Marine: Toulon), fol. 360. 20B1 99 (Marine), fol. 29; IE 229 (Marine: Rochefort) fols. 1-I2-3. 211E 229 (Rochefort) fols. 132-3; 1A* 94 (Toulon) fols. 427-8.

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The best substantiated opinions came from Brest, and were based on the quality of the masts and timber in the America, a ship-of-theline built in New England that had newly arrived in France as a gift of the American Congress.22 Being the first vessel of her size and class constructed in the colonies, the America had many defects, not only in design, but in the quality of her masts and timbers which, if they were considered suitable by her American builders, certainly did not pass muster before the experienced and scrupulous eyes of the French inspectors at. Brest. They had grave objections. The masts, they were convinced, were insufficiently resinous and pliant, and easily breakable. Such masts, it was said, utend to prove" that North American trees, "when employed as masts, will endure no more than three or four years."23 "I do not think," wrote the ordonnateur at Brest, in July 1784, "that it would be advantageous to stock these masts in our European dockyards."24 The officials at Rochefort condemned American masts even more severely and on more shadowy evidence, and indicated in the strongest terms their preference for Riga masts.25 A dissenting voice came from Toulon, where the intendant Malouet and the commandant Fabry were divided on this as on most other questions of naval administration. Malouet, the only ranking port official who unequivocally supported the idea of employing American masts, based his opinion on the quality of "a considerable cargo" from Boston, inspected by him in 1768.26 On the other hand, the commandant Fabry, who opposed the scheme for tapping the new American resource, based his judgment on the quality of certain masts and spars used to refit French ships in American waters, which he had inspected when the ships returned to French ports.27 22 The America, designed to serve as a seventy-four in the navy of the Continental Congress, was laid down at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in the spring of 1777, but lack of funds and skilled labour delayed and frequently interrupted construction. The hull was finally launched in May 1780, but the vessel was not completed until 1782. As a gesture of friendship. Congress gave the ship to France (September 1782) to replace the French ship-of-the-line Magnifique, which was wrecked at Boston in 1782. B4 185 (Marine) fols. 305-6; Naval Records of the American Revolution, 68, 73, 128, 133, 137, 152; Allen, I, 183-4, 223, and II, 609-11; Le Conte, Répertoire des navires, 30. 23 B1 99 (Marine) fol. 32. 24 B3 757 (Marine) fols. 156-7. 2 5fii 99 (Marine) fol. 32. 26B3 763 (Marine) fols. 183-4; fil 99 (Marine) fol. 32. 27B3 763 (Marine) fols. 183-4.

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These opinions, though they were nearly unanimous in opposing the importation of supplies from America, did not decide the minister. He apparently recognized the opinions of his advisers, one and all, for what they were: judgments based, if not on prejudice, on nothing more than a limited familiarity with samples from North American forests. The minister had, in fact, no counsellor who possessed at once technical competence and experience in American forests—the two qualifications essential to the forming of a sound judgment. The minister was torn, as he said, "between the fear of neglecting the resources offered, and the inconvenience of assembling supplies which would be useless at the moment of need."28 Meanwhile, several new offers had been received from citizens of the new American republic, proposing the sale of timber and masts to the navy. Among them was one from General Nathanael Greene, who sought to market live oak timber from his Cumberland Island property off the Georgia coast.29 The minister ordered a ship dispatched to bring back a cargo in the expectation that it would disclose something of the quality of the timber at that source of supply. But when the ship arrived off Georgia, no Cumberland Island timber had been prepared; and since the captain was under strict orders to accept nothing but Cumberland timber, he felt obliged to decline an offer of pieces, already cut, from near-by Sapelo Island, and returned to France with an empty ship.30 Other offers proposing the shipment of masts were more coldly received, particularly at the naval dockyards. In July 17H4 M. de Langristan of Brest, writing to the minister, expressed "doubt that the proposals made for the extraction of American masts . . . could [provide] an advantageous resource."31 Nathaniel Tracy of Newburyport, Massachusetts, offered to deliver masts in the summer of 1784, but his offer was at first declined.32 Meanwhile, John Holker, a French-born merchant who had had extensive contractual dealings in America during the war, shipped a cargo of masts and timber to France from Philadelphia, apparently as a speculative venture without contractual pre-arrangements. His ship ¿.rrived at Brest unexpected, it would seem, but after a delay involved in 28fii 29B3 SOBS 31B3 32Bi

99 (Marine) fol. 55. 788 (Marine) fols. 367-9. 788 (Marine) fols. 367-9. Cf. Gottschalk, 209-10, 246, 273. 757 (Marine) fol. 156. 99 (Marine) fol. 71.

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communication with Versailles, the dockyard officials at Brest were authorized to accept delivery.33 The inspectors accepted only the timber,34 rejecting the masts without exception on the ground that they were defective or totally useless for naval purposes.35 Meanwhile, Nathaniel Tracy, who was then in France, ordered his American agent to ship a cargo of masts, which arrived only a few months after the Holker shipment. But Tracy was deceived by his agent, who sent "a parcel of refuse masts that were fit only for firewood."36 When the critical eyes of the inspectors at Brest fell on this shipment, which Tracy had promised would be composed of "the best in the United States,"37 the effect can well be imagined. Of the whole cargo, only one piece was accepted by the inspectors, and that for experimental purposes.38 The rest were described as "generally defective"; condemned as useless, they were sold at Le Havre for 250 livres.39 The inspectors believed that the shipment comprised masts "rejected by the English . . . taken from very bad land" and of "very ancient cut."40 Those two cargoes of masts, the Holker and Tracy shipments, dealt devastating blows to the immediate possibility of large-scale importations of masts by France from America. The most pessimistic and unfavourable opinions of American forest resources seemed justified. The reputation of American masts was brought low, and the well-established preference for the masts of northern Europe was fortified. But the minister, Castries, was persistent and hard to convince. He knew, of course, that France could reap large benefit if American naval stores of satisfactory quality could be introduced for the use of the navy7. In his mind the conviction remained, 33fi3 757 (Marine) fol. 290. ^Ibid., fols. 290-1. The timber ranged in quality from excellent to poor, but was accepted in entirety in order to diminish Holker's large existing debt to the king. Even inferior timber could be used in many works within the dockyard; inferior masts had far more limited usefulness. ^Ibid.j fol. 290. After a "scrupulous examination," the masts were deemed "entirely defective . . . split, rotted, warped, and knotty . . . with large grain and very open pores denoting susceptibility to early loss of resin, and finally, . . . very inferior in quality to masts of the north." Formal judgment of the Conseil de la Marine at Brest in B3 756 (Marine) fol. 130. 36Lee, LVII, 64-5. 37fi7 461 (Marine) "Considérations sur quelques objets qui intéressent particulièrement la marine du roi" (1788). 38fii 99 (Marine) fol. 71; B3 757 (Marine) fols. 290-1. 39Lee, 65. 40Bi 99 (Marine) fol. 71,

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strengthened by the hasty explanations of Nathaniel Tracy41 and by the arrival of some samples of Georgia live oak timber of excellent quality,42 that the navy could not condemn in entirety the forest resources which Britain had used for over eighty years. The minister's intention to send an inspector to America, plans for which were afoot even before the defective cargoes arrived, was not abandoned. It could be imagined, were it not proved by the evidence, that the scheduled mission of inspection to America would be an unpopular enterprise, not apt to attract a host of volunteers from the ranks of sceptics at the ports. One candidate for the posi: insisted on a huge increase in salary per diem if he undertook the trip.43 Ill health was a common complaint among possible appointees. One inspector, "certainly the most proper for this mission," complained that "his chest could not sustain the rigours'1 of the American climate; the Sieur Nion also complained of the "delicacy of his chest" and added that he could no longer mount a horse, certainly a disqualification, he asserted, for a North American traveller.44 The Sieur Rolland, sous-ingénieur constructeur at Brest, apparently had no objection on grounds of health, but his qualifications, so the minister was informed, were not of the best. For the mission to America, Castries sought a man qualified to judge the quality of timber and masts, not simply as they looked in tie dockyards, but as they appeared as standing trees in the forest. Rolland had long been a mast inspector at Brest, but had little experience in the forests. The ordonnateur at Brest observed that he did £:not possess, perhaps, the experience necessary to inspect a tree, identify its leaves and bark, and judge its properties." "I think," he said, "that it would perhaps be possible to find a man in the other dockyards who has all the knowledge required for a mission of such importance."45 Nevertheless, the choice fell on Rolland. 4

iLee, 64-5. "John Marqueen," an inhabitant of Georgia and proprietor of the islands of Sapelo and Blackbird, sent 3 pieces of live oak timber to France by the packet as samples to support his offers; the timbers were of excellent quality. They "left no doubt as to the preference that Georgian oak merits" at the 43 arsenals. B3 788 (Marine) fols. 367-8. B1 99 (Marine) fol. 83. 44 1 B* 99 (Marine) fols. 55, 67, 70; B 755 (Marine) fol. 76. 4 *Bi 99 (Marine) fols. 55-6, 59. 42

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He arrived in New England during the spring or early summer of 1785 and began his survey in Maine. He worked, apparently, with considerable care in the New England area, writing at least a dozen reports on the forests of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts over a period of about 18 months. The remaining 9 months of his survey carried him through many colonies and as far south as Georgia.46 During the early stages, at least, of his inspection tour, Holland's ignorance of the English language must have been a serious obstacle, and there were other difficulties as well. He was alone, and his inspection of the forests, vast as they were, could not be anything but superficial, particularly when pressure from France urged him to hasten on his way and dispatch frequent reports; a lone inspector sent to survey hundreds of square miles of variegated and widely scattered forest was bound to give cause for later critics to claim that he ' 'penetrated very little into the interior" of the country.47 Nor was it possible, with such an enormous task at hand, for Rolland to compose detailed "tree by tree" reports, as had long been the practice of inspectors who assessed French domestic forests. There was ample reason, both real and imagined, for viewing his reports as inconclusive. Even so, the picture he gave of American forests as a resource for shipbuilding timber was generally accurate. He found only two varieties of American oak suitable for naval construction: the white oak of New England and New York,48 which he considered usable but inferior to the oak of northern Europe, and the live oak of the islands off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina which, he said, were excellent but limited in quantity.49 In entertaining a particularly high opinion of southern live oak, Rolland avoided the error of the English, whose conservatism and preoccupation 4(>fj7 460 (Marine) summaries of letters, ranging in date from 23 December 1785 to 15 December 1786; D3 16 (Marine) "Précis des mémoires envoyés par M. Rolland . . . sur les bois que produit la Nouvelle Angleterre et l'Etat de New York," 14 August 1785 to November 1786. 47 7 B 461 (Marine) "Considérations sur ... la Marine" (1788). 48 3 D 16 (Marine) "Précis des mémoires envoyés par M. Rolland": B7 460 (Marine) summaries of Rolland letters. Cf. C11 E. 11 (Colonies) "Mémoire sur L'Amérique Septentrionale" (1784). 4 »D3 10 (Marine) fols. 114-15; B7 460 (Marine) Rolland report, dated 15 June 1787.

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with native English oak had led them to neglect it, and put himself in accord with the later opinions of American shipbuilders.50 But Holland's dispatches conveyed a generally unfavourable, and inaccurate, picture of American forests as a resource for masts. He believed the forests of New Hampshire and upper New York could produce excellent fir which, though subject to knots, compared well with the much-prized products of northern Europe.51 However, he was not impressed with the large pine of New England. Since pine masts were not commonly employed by the French navy before 1789, Rolland was perhaps prejudiced against the giants of the Penobscot and Kennebec regions of Maine, which he described as dry, odourless, spongy, and "inadmissible for employment as masts."52 The pines of New Hampshire, he said, were too knotty.53 With these summary judgments he dismissed the fine masting trees which had long been a primary resource for the British navy and were, long after, highly favoured for the masting of naval vessels.54 Read as a whole, Rolland's reports depreciated the possibilities of American forest resources. Most of his time was spent inspecting forests that proved worthless or of little use for naval purposes, and his reports reflected that fact. Far from emphasizing the; suitable resources found, he obscured and all but buried his comments on their discovery in the mass of derogatory evidence. The sceptics in France could scarcely have accused him of showing undue favour to American resources, or of being misled into excessive optimism by self-interested American merchants and forest owners. But if Rolland failed to spotlight either the live oak of Georgia and Carolina, or the fir and white oak of New Hampshire and New York, he nevertheless pointed to those areas as worthy cf interest and exploitation by the navy. But while Rolland was exploring, changing conditions in France were working against the possibility of importations from America. French buyers in the Baltic, in spite of serious difficulties in 1784-5, succeeded in accumulating enormous stockpiles of northern masts s°Albion, 23, 358. 51JJ7 460 (Marine) summary of Rolland report, dated 15 December 1787; D352103 (Marine) fols. 108-11. 3 D 10 (Marine) fol. 104; D 15 (Marine) "Précis des mémoires envoyés par M. Rolland" (undated). 53fi7 460 (Marine) Rolland report, dated 29 September 1786. s*Albion, 31-2, 245-6, 275-6.

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at French arsenals.55 Moreover, before Roland returned, Castries was replaced as minister of the navy by the Comte de Luzerne,56 during whose tenure of office naval expenditures were reduced, and interest in importations of masts and timber from North America waned. During the Luzerne administration, repeated offers of naval stores were received from American merchants and forest owners, including at least one from a proprietor seeking to market the excellent live oak timber available on his island property off the Georgia shore,57 but none of the offers was accepted. Memoranda were written and presented to the minister on the great advantages of buying masts and other naval stores in America,58 but no move appears to have been made toward awarding contracts. Although North American forests did not deliver France from dependence on the Baltic in the immediate post-war years, another opportunity was then at hand for achieving the same end by very different means. This second opportunity had one significant and appealing advantage, which North America did not have, to recommend it to the French : it involved tapping forest resources whose qualitative excellence had been proved beyond all doubt. Indeed, the only innovation consisted in the new and, for the French, very much shorter and more protected route by which "Baltic" masts could be brought to France. The opening of a new route for Franco-Russian trade was a by-product of the RussoTurkish Treaty of Kuchuk-Kamarji (1774), which granted Russia navigation rights on the Black Sea, and the subsequent Convention of Ainali-Cavac (1779) between the same two powers, according Russian ships the right to pass the Straits.59 The actual opening to Russian traffic of this new route through the Straits in 1781 made it possible for France to import Russian masts through the Medi•^B1 99 (Marine) fols. 28-78 passim. In 1785 the dockyard at Brest was stocked with over 6,000 Baltic masts and 1,600 spars, a supply of unprecedented size. B5 26 (Marine), inventaire. 56 The Comte de Luzerne was Governor of Santo Domingo when given the portfolio of the navy; from the demise of Castries in 1786 until the arrival of Luzerne in France in December 1788, the Comte de Montmorin, then minister of foreign affairs, handled naval administration. 57B3 788 (Marine) fols. 367-9. 58B7 461 (Marine) "Considérations sur ... la Marine" (1788). 59 The long-standing interest of the Venetians, Dutch, and French in the Straits question and Black Sea navigation prior to 1774 is surveyed by Masson, Histoire du commerce français, 637-48, and more recently by Charles-Roux,

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terranean instead of by the traditional and precarious Baltic-North Sea route. The intentions of the Czarina in regard to the promotion of this Black Sea trade were not at first clear. But the French rightly surmised as early as 1775 that "this princess is too enlightened not to sense all the advantages afforded by her new acquisitions," either for further conquest or for economic purposes.60 During the decade after 1774 it became evident that the Czarina Catherine intended, after the manner of Peter the Great, to develop both the military and commercial potentialities of Russia's southern seaboard.61 Though there were, at first, no sizable cities or towns along the newly acquired Black Sea coast, a Black Sea port named Kherson (Cherson) had been established under the Czarina's auspices by the end of 1778 on the low-lying banks of the River Dnieper, about 20 miles above its mouth. When visited by a French traveller in 1781, Kherson was already a strongly fortified and heavily garrisoned town of perhaps 3,000 inhabitants, "the greater part Germans, Greeks, and Poles," who had already developed some trade.62 The Frenchman who visited Kherson in 1781 was a Marseille merchant named Anthoine, for 10 years a resident of Constantinople, who had watched with growing interest as the Russians strengthened their hold on the Black Sea coast, developed towrns, and expanded the possibilities for trade. Encouraged by the Russian ambassador at Constantinople, and with the hearty approval of the French ambassador and Versailles, this merchant undertook a trip to Russia with expenses paid by the French government, to assess commercial possibilities.63 Anthoine's trip proved to be the passim. French interest in naval materials from Black Sea sources wa> indicated as early as 1685. Depping, III, 657. Cf. B? 157 (Marine) fol. 494: B2 158 (Marine) fols. 10, 19, 265, 314. ^Recueil des instructions: Russie, II, 297, 319. 61 The notion that Russia might establish an important commercial company at the mouth of the Don for trade was "in the air" in 1757. Buschin?, 129-31. C2 K. 907 (Arch Nat) dossier 15, "Mémoire sur les moyens de Naviguer en Sûreté sur la Mer Noire, et les avantages qui en resulteroient pour le Commerce de la France" (1782). Cf. Ségur, III, 142-3. A well-laden Russian ship opened trade over the southern route by reaching Marseille from Kherson in the spring of 1781. Masson, Histoire du commerce français, 649. 63B7 448 (Marine) Vergennes to Castries, 3 April 1783; Anthoine de St. Joseph, 10-12. As early as 1777 the French recognized the need "tc find per-

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opening move in the development of Franco-Russian trade by the Black Sea route. Well-equipped with letters of introduction, the traveller visited Kherson, which was to become the seat of his commercial activities for some years to come, then travelled northward up the Dnieper, finally reaching St. Petersburg later in 1781. Through the representations of the French minister at the capítol, and through extended conferences with Russian officials, Anthoine obtained important promises of commercial concessions.64 Leaving St. Petersburg, he returned to Kherson and thence made his way to Warsaw, where he interested the Polish king in his projects and opened conversations that ultimately led to an agreement with the king's nephew, Prince Poniatowski, for the exploitation of masting trees on his Lithuanian estates.65 The objects of Anthoine's visit aroused great interest, and excessive optimism, among merchants in Poland. Prussia was then exacting tariffs on their trade via Baltic ports, and the possibility of commercial traffic by an alternative route to the south seemed an opportunity to escape economic strangulation at Prussian hands.66 After his sojourn in Russia and Poland (1781-2), Anthoine travelled to Versailles, where his report stirred a flurry of official interest. Several developments on which he could report were related directly to the possibility of opening a Black Sea trade in naval stores. Russia authorized the sale of timber and masting trees destined for export via Kherson and promised to allow foreigners to visit the interior of the country in order to negotiate directly with forest proprietors for the choice of trees. Exports from Kherson were declared duty free, without quantitative restrictions of any sons in a position to provide detailed and exact information" on the conditions of trade. Anthoine, by experience and profession, appeared exceptionally wellqualified. Bi 92 (Marine) fols. 22-4, 27. 64B7 448 (Marine) Vergennes to Castries, 3 April 1783. 65 Masson, Histoire du commerce français, 650. Cf. Anthoine de St. Joseph (1820), 181-2. 66R. 907 (Arch Nat) dossier 15; Anthoine de St. Joseph (1820), 121-32; Rutkowski, 198-9. A trading company was created at Warsaw under the leadership of Paulus van Schooten to stimulate lumber and general trade via the Dnieper to Kherson. Later, the firm of Chassaigno & Co. was established at Kherson to trade in Levantine products with Poland. Gideonse, chap, iv; B3 787 (Marine) fol. 81; Feldman, 2.

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kind. More important still, Russia granted permission for foreign ships trading at Kherson to use the Russian flag.68 French ships, under the Czarina's flag, could thus pass the Straits. To encourage Polish traffic via the Dnieper and Kherson, Russia promised that no tariff would be levied on Polish exports from the Kherson entrepôt.69 These concessions seemed to promise an alternative to tie Baltic market as a source of naval stores. The French stood to gain access by a shorter, less expensive, and more nearly ice-free rouie to the forests in the Dnieper basin from which many of the famous Riga masts were taken, and to escape the very heavy duties Isvied on masts sold at Baltic ports. In the highly competitive northern market, as we have seen, the French were among the least privileged of all buyers, but at Kherson they would be privileged themselves. At Kherson, furthermore, they would not have to contend with Anglo-Dutch competitors in their buying, and instead of purchasing masts through profit-taking intermediaries, they could contract directly with forest owners. This bright picture of possibilities was darkened, however, by the obvious enmity between the Russians and Turks. There was no reason to believe that the Russian and Ottoman empires had renounced the basic policies which had so often led to struggle before. Russia had taken a long step south at the sultan's expense. The latter had called a truce and signed a humiliating treaty at KuchukKaïnarji, but only to halt the Russian advance.70 The fact that the port of Kherson was built in a commercially undesirable but militarily acceptable locality was evidence of the threat posed by the proximity and known hostility of the Turks; perhaps it also 67 Anthoinc de St. Joseph, 68; K. 907 (Arch Nat) dossier 15. Import duties on French products were to be moderated on condition that the 2C per cent levy at Marseille on ships carrying the Russian flag would be suppressed. With an ultimatum and military demonstration, Joseph II forced the Turks to grant this privilege to Austrian shipping. 08 K. 907 (Arch Nat) dossier 15. At Constantinople the French Aribassador, Saint-Priest, "attempted in vain by timid overtures" to obtain Turkish permission for ships carrying the French flag to pass the Straits. ChoiseulGoufHer's later efforts likewise failed. Masson, Histoire du commerce français, 650, 652. 69 It was believed that difficulties with the cataracts of the lower Dnieper could be overcome. 70 In 1780, M. de Verac, French Minister at St. Petersburg, expressed pessimism concerning the possibilities for continued Russo-Turkish peace. Recueil des instructions: Russie, II, 361—3.

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evidenced the intentions of the Russians.71 For France, Black Sea trade under Russia's flag was precarious at best, and could endure only so long as the Turks were inclined to respect that flag, and so long as the Russians and Turks were disposed to abide by mutually unsatisfactory terms of peace. The tension between Russia and Turkey and the misrepresentation involved in trading under the Russian flag gave cause for caution but did not prevent the navy from investing heavily and expecting much from Black Sea trade. In the spring of 1783 Vergennes urged that the enterprise be hurried along with vigour, for fear, he said, that the English would establish themselves at Kherson first.72 Anthoine received exclusive rights to furnish, on a commission basis, all naval stores taken from Kherson. Since he did not have ships of his own, the navy sold him 5 of its cargo carriers, and, what is more remarkable, not only allowed him 3 years to pay but the right to pay in naval stores.73 A "gratuity" was accorded him to assist in the purchase or construction of warehouses and other suitable commercial buildings at Kherson74 and a credit of 100 thousand livres, in the form of an "advance," was established for him by the navy at an Amsterdam bank.75 In the summer of 1784 a master mastman was sent to Kherson (to which Anthoine had returned) ; he was to assist Anthoine in the choice of trees and was to take his orders from him.76 To further his enterprises, Anthoine had established convenient 71 The waters of the lower Dnieper were too shallow to allow vessels taking more than 7 feet of water to ascend to Kherson; all cargo was handled by lighters well below the town. The shallows, however, were a natural defence against attacks by Turkish naval forces which could be, and after 1786 were, based near Ochakov. below Kherson at the river mouth. Anthoine de St. Joseph, 24-8; Segur, III, 142-51 passim; Golden, 33 seq. 722? 448 (Marine) Vergennes to Castries, 3 April 1783. 731 A1 93 (Toulon) Castries to Fabry, 12 June 1783; fil 99 (Marine) fols. 3, 17; Anthoine de St. Joseph, 100-4. The 5 ships had an aggregate tonnage of 1,200 tons and were priced, for Anthoine, at 107,479 livres. C7 6 (Marine) dossier Anthoine, "Dettes du S. Anthoine . . . envers la Marine," dated 15 June 1787. Considerable care was taken to shroud the whole affair in secrecy, even to the point of renaming one of the transports Comte de Stakelbert, ostensibly to fool the Turks. 7437 448 (Marine) Vergennes to Castries, 3 April 1783. 7 ~>Ibid., Anthoine to Castries, 8 June 1784. 76JB7 448 (Marine) Anthoine to Castries, 24 May 1783; C7 44 (Marine) dossier Brand. One inspector was relieved of his post and replaced because he failed to get along with Anthoine. B3 763 (Marine) fols. 127-8. 148; B1 99 (Marine) fol. 10.

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connections in Warsaw, and during 1784-5 the master mastman at his disposal travelled to the central Ukraine and Poland to inspect forests. The first and most important contractual agreement for masts was made with Prince Poniatowsky, who agreed to the exploitation of 300 masts (during 1785-6) from his great forested tracts near Bobruisk.77 In early 1785 Anthoine informed the minister that a large number of masts from Poniatowsky's lands had already been cut and were on the river en route for the Kherson entrepôt.78 From the beginning it was believed at both Toulon and in the ministry of the navy at Versailles that the Black Sea traffic would supply masts identical, in size and quality, with those available at the Riga market, and it was hoped they would come at a lower price. There seemed reason to believe that Anthoine and his agents would not only be free to buy all the trees desired, but would skim the cream from the crop that customarily went north to the Baltic market. During 1785-6, however, Anthoine's reports on the progress of his enterprise disclosed that contracting conditions were neither as free nor as favourable for the French as officials at Toulon and Versailles had been led to expect. In February 1785 the navy was informed that the Poniatowsky lands were producing many pieces of common size (14—21 palms), and very few masts of the larger, more sought for dimensions.79 Later in the spring word was received that the peasants were being paid "a small gratuity of 4 to 10 livres per mast . . . for the discovery of trees of large diameter55;80 a still later report conveyed the disappointing news that all the masts cut in the Poniatowsky forests in 1785 were under 22 palms, though the number was larger than anticipated.81 Moreover, as was later disclosed, the French were paying Riga prices and were enjoying the special favour of a certain M. Metisky (Poniatowsky5s agent) in being permitted to buy any piece over 19 palms, "since all the larger masts cut are destined for Riga55 !82 7737 448 (Marine) letters of Anthoine to Castries, 14 February and 4 March 1785, with enclosures. Wlbid., Anthoine to Castries, 7 February 1785. Wlbid., Anthoine to Castries, 7 and 17 February 1785. It will be recalled that French dockyards were, from 1783 onward, heavily overstocked with masts of the smaller sizes. sofiT 448 (Marine) Anthoine to Castries, 4 March 1785. 8l lbid., "Copie de la lettre du Maître Mâteur au Sr. Anthoine, Bobruisky le 8214 Mars 1785." /6: