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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO THE MARÉCHAL DE CASTRIES. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 8 (Letters and State Papers 1782-1799) [1853]

Edition used:

The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856). 10 volumes. Vol. 8.

Part of: The Works of John Adams, 10 vols.

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TO THE MARÉCHAL DE CASTRIES.

Auteuil, 9 December, 1784.

Monsieur le Maréchal,—

According to your desire, I have committed to writing the two or three observations on the business of masts, yards, and bowsprits, which I had last Tuesday the honor of making in conversation with your Excellency at Paris.

The eastern parts of the Massachusetts, particularly the counties of York, Cumberland, and Lincoln, and more especially the lands lying near the four great rivers, which meet in Merry-meeting Bay, and flow together under the name of Kennebec River into the sea, are the spot upon which grow the best pine trees for masts which are found in America, and from whence the English government, before the Revolution, procured their masts for large ships, unless perhaps they obtained a few from some parts of New Hampshire. By the charter of Massachusetts, pine trees were reserved to the Crown; and various acts of parliament were made, from time to time, forbidding, upon severe penalties, private persons to cut such trees. The King had an officer, under the title of surveyor-general of the woods, who had under him a great number of deputy-surveyors for the inspection and conservation of these trees. Mr. Wentworth, the last royal governor of New Hampshire, was the last surveyor-general, at whose request the subscriber commenced and prosecuted a great number of libels in the court of admiralty at Boston, against transgressions of those acts of parliament, so that he thinks himself well warranted to say that those acts of parliament, instead of containing any proof of the bad quality of American pine trees, as your Excellency was pleased to say you had been informed, contained the best proof of their excellence, and of the high esteem in which the parliament held them.

There was a considerable number of large vessels which were called mast ships, constantly employed in transporting from Kennebec and Piscataqua Rivers pine trees for masts, spars, and bowsprits for the royal navy. And the trees of thirty-six inches diameter which the English were very fond of for their large ships, were only to be found in America.

There are upon the territory before described a number of families whose whole occupation has been to cut, draw, and prepare this kind of trees for the royal navy of England. It is a difficult, laborious, and hazardous business, and not very profitable; but being educated to this employment from their infancy, knowing perfectly the country and the lands where the trees are, the proper seasons for the business, and having their tools and machines, as well as their teams of cattle, always ready, and knowing all the most frugal ways of saving expenses and making advantages, they were able to live by the business, when other persons, without these advantages, would have ruined themselves. These people were commonly called mastmen, and they are so valuable a set of men, that whoever first engages them, whether the French or the English, will obtain an advantage. The English are said to have sent an agent to Boston; and there is no doubt that they will exert themselves to secure these mastmen, unless your Excellency, by seizing a favorable opportunity of contracting with some of the Americans now here, engage them beforehand.

Your Excellency will permit me to say, that I apprehend all surveys and experiments made upon the masts and spars now on board of the French ships, which were procured in America, will not only be useless, but illusory. It will not be a fair trial, because, on the breaking out of hostilities between Great Britain and America, the whole system of the masting business and commerce was broken up. The mastmen, like the fishermen, not finding their usual employment, went into others, sold their cattle, and laid aside their tools; so that the pine timber furnished to the French ships, although the best then and there to be had, was only such as was left by the English, or obtained by hazard in improper places, and in a green, unseasoned state. It is no wonder, then, if the wood is found to shrink, for the wood of the pine tree is of such a nature, that when cut and used green, it always shrinks, whether it grows in America or in Sweden, Norway, or Russia.

I am well informed that the most intelligent officers of the British navy attributed the loss of the great number of the capital ships by bad weather in the late war, a loss unprecedented in any former war, wholly to the want of American masts. The ministry ordered their expedition to Penobscot, in the view of obtaining masts, but they found themselves disappointed. They found there pine trees, it is true, but no mastmen, no sufficient teams of cattle, no proper machines for the business. All these were without their lines. So that they obtained no masts of any value.

There is not in America, at least within my knowledge, a merchant more intelligent, or any way more capable of giving your Excellency full information upon the subject, nor more worthy of confidence, than Mr. Tracy and Mr. Jackson, who are now in Paris, and to them I beg leave to refer.

With great and sincere respect, &c.

John Adams.