10 



evidently were, for soon pinnace, gig and long boat were 

 busy sounding the approach to the harbor. Day-break saw 

 them disembarking, and the morning's clear light showed to 

 the thirty-nine defenders of the fortress an array of four 

 hundred troops, bearing again the flag of France on those far 

 northern shores. The summons to surrender was followed by 

 a parley, and when the parley ended, the gallant La Perouse 

 found himself in bloodless possession of a fortress which, pro- 

 perly garrisoned, might have defied all the ships of France 

 that had ever entered Hudson's Bay. 



The French Admiral quickly transported the rich bales of 

 valuable furs to his ships, and replenished their depleted com- 

 missariat from the well-filled provision stores of the fort. 

 Then came the license of the soldiery and the looting of the 

 fort, to be followed by an attempt, which occupied two days, 

 to utterly demolish it. But although French gunpower was 

 freely added to the vast English store, yet the walls of the 

 fort, this well built mass of masonry, resisted the best efforts 

 of the French artillerymen to do more than displace the upper 

 rows of the massive granite stones of which it was mainly 

 built, dismount its guns and blow up the gateway and the 

 stone outwork which protected it. 



The capture of this far off* northern fortress was cheaply 

 and easily performed by the adventurous Frenchman, who 

 extended his conquests around the shores of the bay ; but the 

 fortunes of war after a time turned again, and the Company 

 of Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay, who, at their own 

 expense, had built the fort for the defence of their trade, sent 

 in a bill for many thousand sterling pounds to the British 

 Government, for failing to protect their factory at Churchill ; 

 and when, again, peace was proclaimed, it was after the 

 French plenipotentiaries had agreed to settle the bill for La 

 Perouse's capture and demolition of Fort Prince of Wales. It 

 was never rebuilt, and stands on that far-off" northern coast, 

 the still well preserved remains of a massive fortification, the 

 most northern one of British America, scarcely inferior, as 



