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grand-vicar at Paris to the Bishop, of Quebec. He took his course of study and his theology at a little seminary in the diocese of St. Malo, and on the 13th September, 1772, was ordained priest at Montreal by Mgr. Briand. A year later he was sent to Acadia to minister to his compatriots, the Acadians. He took charge of his mission at the beginning of September, 1773. The mission was called "Cotes maritimes de l'Acadie." It extended from Gaspé as far south as Cocagne. Immense as was the field it was to be enlarged for in the month of August 1774 there was added Menoudie, Memramcook, Petitcodiac, Quanabeqachis [or Kennebecasis], the St. John river, the peninsula of Nova Scotia and the Island of Cape Breton. The bishop of Quebec at this time appointed M. Bourg to the office of Grand Vicar in Acadia. After the close of the Revolutionary war Father Bourg again retired to the Bay of Chaleur. As already stated the advantages of his mission among the St. John river Indians during the Revolutionary war were very great.

The friendship of the Indians at this time was indispensably necessary to the protection of the mast cutters on the St. John river. This fact naturally leads us to consider briefly the origin of the business commonly known as "masting." It may truly be said that for a hundred years the province of New Brunswick has lived by the product of its forests, the consideration, therefore, of the first steps towards the development of our forest resources ought to be of some interest. Masts were cut upon the St. John river for the French navy, by order of Louis XIV., two hundred years ago. Monsieur Dièreville says that in the year 1700 the French man-of-war Avenant, a good King's ship mounting 44 guns, which had brought out the annual supplies for Villebon's Fort at Nashwaak on the River St. John, took on board some very fine masts