In 1709, D.I. was still called Massacre Island and the colonists were desperate to find a cash crop, a trading partner and any form of lucrative enterprise.

 from http://www.acadiansingray.com/Acadians%20of%20LA-Intro-4.htm

In January, a month before the Renommée arrived, "a small French sailing vessel," its name lost to history, appeared at Port Massacre.  The ship had sailed from Havana and carried a cargo of "tobacco, bacon, and brandy," some of which was purchased by the more prosperous colonists.  "This was the first instance, ten years after the arrival of the French in Louisiana," François-Xavier Martin notes, "of a vessel coming to trade with them."  Several weeks later, an 80-ton vessel out of Nantes appeared, "bringing more vendibles."  Louisiana now was perceived as a market for French trade goods.  For years, Bienville had sent traversiers to Veracruz and Havana to engage in questionable commerce, but now legitimate commerce was coming to him.  Massacre was becoming a proper port, connected, at least, to the francophone world.128

But, sadly, it was a port without its own ship.  With the exception, perhaps, of Bienville and Châteauguay, the arrival of the Renommée was welcomed by everyone; the first re-supply in nearly two years.  Iberville's old ship brought few soldiers, no women, and only a single priest, but it did bring a plethora of food and provisions, the largest re-supply since the Pélican three and a half years earlier.  And therein lay the problem--there were no more traversiers or feluccas to move the supplies from the ship to the warehouse and then up to Fort Louis.  Every available canoe and pirogue converged on the ship, but this "resulted in heavy fees, as well as losses in time and merchandise"--a prolonged, inefficient, and chaotic transfer.129

The Minister of Marine had anticipated the need for a new vessel at Mobile.  One of the passengers aboard the Renommée was Jacques Le Roux, a shipbuilder--specifically, a second-master constructor--from Rochefort who specialized in building small craft.  Le Roux had come to the colony with Iberville in 1702 and had been ordered to build a flat-bottomed pinnance that was never finished and which had rotted on the ways.  He had returned to Rochefort, but now he was back, tasked with building another flat-bottomed barge, this one of 35 or 40 tons burden, "capable of transporting goods over the sometimes shallow bars between the fort and Massacre Island."  Dartaguiette's contract with Le Roux called for 15 workers, who would be mostly Canadians, and an outlay of 3,000 livres.  The barge would be constructed at the fort, "near the small hospital on the creek just north of town."  Le Roux began construction probably in the late winter, and the barge was ready by the first week of June.  The vessel was "constructed mostly of green oak to ward off the insects and wood borers...."  The final product was between 30 and 35 tons burden, slightly smaller than what the contract had called for, but, most importantly, the barge drew only a foot of water unloaded and only four feet when fully loaded.  It completed its maiden voyage down to Massacre in late summer, and the co-commanders were pleased with the vessel's performance.  They named it the Vierge de Grâce.130