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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2011
The poor quality of western European forests as sources of masts and the depletion of oak forests in Britain and France during the eighteenth century forced the two principal maritime powers to import naval timber and to seek far afield for naval masts. Both Britain and France gradually were forced to increase their imports of timber from neighboring states and the Baltic market. The acquisition of masts for naval vessels involved even greater dependence on markets overseas. Masting trees were sparsely scattered in western Europe; the British Isles produced none. France took some masts from forests in the Pyrenees, Auvergne, Alsace, and Dauphiné, but they were limited in quantity, lacking in flexibility, and were often condemned for their propensity to early brittleness and rot. Masts imported from French colonies in North America proved unsatisfactory in both cost and quality. Until the last quarter of the eighteenth century Britain enjoyed an advantage over France in the acquisition of colonial North American mast supplies, since die forests of New England produced excellent masts of extraordinary size. Britain's imports from New England, under a Royal Navy monopoly, satisfied a sizable part of her needs and reduced the British navy's importation of Baltic mast supplies by perhaps one third in the early 1770's. The American Revolution, however, abruptly ended Britain's monopoly of American masts. The rebellious colonists halted British imports and opened the splendid pine forests of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine to French naval exploitation.
1 Although Auvergne masts were condemned for bad quality by Seignelay as early as 1680, their exploitation continued intermittently until, in 1740, it was officially declared that they should be used only when others were not available; in 1782 the Conseil de la Marine at Brest declared that they “could not be employed in any case.” G. 184 (Marine) Seignelay to Colbert, May 9, 1680; Mémain, René, La Marine de guerre sous Louis XIV (Paris, 1937), pp. 624–25Google Scholar; 5E2 18 (Marine: Rochefort), “Extrait du proces verbal du 7e Septembre 1740”; D3 16 (Marine), Dubois to Castries, January 23, 1786. Pyrenees fir was generally the most satisfactory of domestic masting trees, but heavy exploitations from that source in the 1760's produced great numbers of worthless spars and masts. Not one of the 534 Pyrenees masts delivered to the arsenals in 1764 was considered fit for naval use. B1 74 (Marine), fols. 179–84. Quality improved in 1766 and 1768, but rejects remained numerous. Masts taken from the forests of Alsace were even more unreliable; in May 1775, twelve ships whose Alsacian masts had been condemned lay in the harbor at Toulon. B1 74 (Marine), fol. 166; 5E2 11 (Marine: Rochefort), “Extrait et proces verbal,” February 19, 1768; B3 627 (Marine), fols. 230–31; B3 622 (Marine), fol. 124; B1 71 (Marine), fol. 106.
2 French mast exploitations in Canada, begun in the 1660's by Talon, were continued intermittently until 1731, when the importation of Canadian masts for the navy was stopped. Concerning the decision to halt importations in 1731: C 11 A. 55 (Colonies), fols. 218, 221, 228; 1E 116 (Marine: Rochefort), letters of Maurepas to Beauharnais, dated January 1–13 inclusive and February 3, 1732; Fauteux, Joseph-Noël, Essai tur l'industrie au Canada sous le régime français (Quebec, 1927), I, 209–11.Google Scholar
3 The above material on the British navy from: Albion, Robert G., Forests and Sea Power: The Timber Problem of the Royal Navy, 1652–1862 (Cambridge, 1926)Google Scholar, passim.
4 Albion, Forests and Sea Power, pp. 144–45, and passim. As early as 1740, the French blamed depletion of the forests for the difficulty of obtaining northern masts of over twentyfour palms; by 1770, all masts of the larger sizes were described as rare in northern forests. In 1771, the Polish forests accessible to the Baltic were said to be exhausted, and the mast merchants of Riga were buying their supplies in the Ukraine. B1 71 (Marine), fol. 211; B1 80 (Marine), fols. 21–32, 213; B3 627 (Marine), fols. 234–35; Marbault, , Essai sur le commerce de Russie (Amsterdam, 1777), p. 503 ff.Google Scholar
5 The French often employed Hope and Company of Amsterdam as commission agents for mast purchases before 1770. Thereafter, the English houses of Wale-Pierson and Collins were frequently employed in spite of the fact that the Collins buyers were believed to be “entirely devoted to their nation and opposed to our [French] interests.” B1 99 (Marine), fols. 35–36; D3 8 (Marine), fols. 107–8; B7 448 (Marine), “Memoire contenant les remarques sur le commerce et la navigation de la Baltique,” dated 1784. On English dealings with Wale-Pierson in the 1770's, see Albion, Forests and Sea Power, pp. 287–88.
6 In 1767 only ten French vessels were among the 8,495 ships which passed the Sound, and 1768 saw only six French among the 6,493 registered at Elsinore. Yet, in that period, France was drawing heavily on northern ports for naval stores and other merchandise. No less than 205 non-French ships left the Baltic in 1768 carrying wood products and hemp to France, and the cargoes of at least thirty-three of those foreign vessels were destined for French naval arsenals. Mémoires et documents pour servir à l'histoire du commerce et de l'industrie en France. série, Quatrième, ed. Julien Hayem (Paris, 1916), pp. 234–35Google Scholar; B7 429 (Marine), “Navires qui ont passer et repasser le Sund de la France et pour la France [in 1768],” dated February 14, 1769.
7 Albion, Forests and Sea Power, p. 285.
8 Force, Peter, American Archives: Fifth Seriet. (Washington, 1848–52). III, column 883.Google Scholar
9 B7 459 (Marine), Letter from Franklin, Lee and Adams, dated Passy, December 25, 1778, transmitting Langdon's letter, dated Portsmouth, October 21, 1778.
10 B7 459 (Marine).
11 B4 172 (Marine), fols. 306–7.
12 B1 92 (Marine), fols. 5, 8.
13 Abernethy, Thomas P., “Commercial Activities of Silas Deane in France,” A.H.R., 1934, p. 478.Google Scholar
14 B1 92 (Marine), fol. 8; Duer Papers: Letterbook on Duer Timber Contracts, 1774–1178; The Deane Papers, 1774–1790 (Collections of the New York Historical Society; New York, 1887–1891), Deane to Lc Ray de Chaumont, February 28, 1783, V, 132–33.Google Scholar
15 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, Deane to John Jay, February 28, 1783; Deane to Robert Morris, October 19, 1783, V, 140–41, 205–6.
16 B1 92 (Marine), fol. 5.
17 B1 92 (Marine).
18 Colonel William Duer of New York, who contracted to supply the British navy with masts in 1768 and was negotiating 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 American masts. Duer Papers: Letterbook on Duer Timber Contracts, 1774–1778; Deane Papers, Deane to William Duer, June 4, 1780, IV, 168 and passim; Davis, Joseph S., Essays on the Earlier History of American Corporations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917), pp. 113–20.Google Scholar
19 Deane Papers, Deane to William Duer, August 23, 1780, IV, 190, and Deane to James Wilson, May 11, 1781, V, 316–17.
20 Deane Papers, Deane to James Wilson, May 11, 1781, V, 316–17. In expressing doubt that 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).
21 “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, Deane to William Duer, September 28, 1780, IV, 235.
22 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 Chaumont and the estrangement of Duer, 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 the Maréchal de Castries (minister of the navy), to execution of the contract on the terms arranged in 1780 by his ministerial predecessor.
23 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. In marshalling their arguments on this question they would almost certainly have adduced evidence, either pro or con, from the quality of any shipments 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, seems to indicate that none arrived at the naval dockyards during the years 1778–83.
24 Several of the Comte d'Estaing's ships 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 November 5, 1778, in Doniol, Henri, Histoire de la participation de la France à l'établissement des États-Unis (Paris, 1884–99), III, 459Google Scholar. Three cargoes of masts and other naval stores were prepared at Boston for shipment in 1782, but they were destined for the West Indies. B7 460 (Marine), Letombe to Castries, June 15 and 30, 1782. Albion found evidence that three cargoes of masts were shipped from Portsmouth to France between 1775 and 1777; our evidence seems to authorize the conjecture that those three shipments went to French commercial ports. Albion, Forests and Sea Power, p. 278.
25 B1 99 (Marine), fol. 29; D2 10 (Marine), fols. 96–97; 1A1 94 (Marine: Toulon), fols. 133–360.
26 1E 229 (Marine: Rochefort), fols. 132–33; 1A1 94 (Marine: Toulon), foL 360.
27 B1 99 (Marine), fol. 29; 1E 229 (Marine: Rochefort), fols. 132–33.
28 1E 229 (Marine: Rochefort), fols. 132–33; 1A1 94 (Marine: Toulon), fols. 427–28.
29 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 labor 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 (Washington, D.C., 1906), pp. 68Google Scholar, 73, 128, 133, 137, 152; Allen, Gardner W., A Naval History of the American Revolution (Boston, 1913), I, pp. 183–84Google Scholar, 223; II, 609–11; Conte, Pierre Le, Répertoire des navires de guerre français (Cherbourg, 1932), p. 30.Google Scholar
30 B1 99 (Marine), fol. 32.
31 B3 757 (Marine), fols. 156–57.
32 B1 99 (Marine), fol. 32.
33 B3 763 (Marine), fols. 183–84; B1 99 (Marine), fol. 32.
34 B3 763 (Marine), fob. 183–84.
35 B1 99 (Marine), fol. 55.
36 B3 788 (Marine), fols. 367–69.
37 B3 788 (Marine), fob. 367–69.
38 B3 757 (Marine), fol. 156.
39 B1 99 (Marine), fol. 71.
40 B3 757 (Marine), fol. 290.
41 Ibid., fols. 290–91. 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.
42 Ibid., 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, they are very inferior in quality to masts of the north.” Formal judgment of the Conseil de la marine at Brest in Bs 756 (Marine), fol. 130.
43 Lee, Thomas L., “The Tracy Family of Newburyport.” Essex Historical Collections (Salem, 1921), XVII, 64–65.Google Scholar
44 B7 461 (Marine), “Considerations sur quelques objets qui interessent particulierement la marine du roi” (1788).
45 B1 99 (Marine), fol. 71; B3 757 (Marine), fols. 290–91.
46 Lee, The Tracy Family, p. 65.
47 B1 99 (Marine), fol. 71.
48 Lee, The Tracy Family, pp. 64–65.
49 “John Marqueen,” an inhabitant of Georgia and proprietor of the islands of Sapello and Blackbird, sent three pieces of live oak timber to France by the packet as samples to support his contract offers; the timbers were of excellent quality. They “left no doubt as to the preference that Georgian oak merits” at the arsenals. B3 788 (Marine), fol. 367–68.
50 B1 99 (Marine), fol. 83.
51 Ibid., fols. 55, 67, 70; B3 755 (Marine), fol. 76.
52 B1 99 (Marine), fols. 55–56, 59.
53 B7 460 (Marine), summaries of letters, ranging in date from December 23, 1785, to December 15, 1786; D3 16 (Marine), “Precis des memoires envoyes par M. Rolland … sur les bois que produit la Nouvelle Angleterre et l'Etat de New York,” dated August 14, 1785, to November 1786.
54 B7 461 (Marine), “Considerations sur … la Marine” (1788).
55 D3 16 (Marine), “Precis des memoires envoyes par M. Rolland …”; B7 460 (Marine), Summaries of Rolland letters; cf., C11 E11 (Colonies), “Memoire sur L'Amerique Septentrionalle” (1784).
56 D3 10 (Marine), fols, 114–15; B7 460 (Marine), Rolland report dated June 15, 1787.
57 Albion, Forests and Sea Power, pp. 23, 358.
58 B7 460 (Marine), summary of Rolland report, dated December 15, 1787; D3 10 (Marine), fols. 108–11.
59 Albion, Forests and Sea Power, pp. 31–32, 245–46, 275–76.
60 D8 10 (Marine), fol. 104; D3 15 (Marine), “Precis des memoires envoyes par M. Rolland …” undated.
61 B7 460 (Marine), Rolland report dated September 29, 1786.
62 B1 99 (Marine), fols. 28–78 passim. The dockyard at Brest was stocked with over 6,000 Baltic masts and 1,600 spars in 1785 … a supply of unprecedented size. B5 26 (Marine), Inventaire.
63 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.
64 Baltic purchases remained on a high level nonetheless. Nearly 800 masts were sent to France by the navy's Baltic contractors in 1788–89. D3 16 (Marine), “Tableau du prix de chaque espece de mats expedies de Riga” (1789).
65 B3 788 (Marine), fols. 367–69.
66 B7 461 (Marine), “Considerations sur … la marine” (1788).
67 “Considerations sur … la marine.”
