Hudson Bay Expedition - Aftermath

Aftermath

La Pérouse then began the journey back to the Atlantic, towing the Severn as far as Cape Resolution. There she was cut loose to make her way back to England, while La Pérouse sailed for Cadiz with Sceptre and Engageante; Astrée made sail for Brest to deliver news of the expedition's success to Paris. The expedition took a tremendous toll on his ships' crews. By the time the ships returned to Europe, Sceptre had only 60 men (out of an original complement, including land troops, of almost 500) fit to work; about 70 men died of scurvy. Engageante had suffered 15 deaths from scurvy, and almost everyone was sick with one malady or another. Both ships had also suffered damage due to cold weather and battering by ice floes. Fleuriot de Langle received a brevet promotion to capitaine de vaisseau upon his arrival in Brest in late October.

According to the company, the goods taken at Prince of Wales alone were worth more than £14,000, and La Pérouse's raid so damaged the company finances that it paid no dividends until 1786. When peace finally came with the 1783 Treaty of Paris, the French agreed to compensate the company for its losses. The raid did permanent damage to the company's trading relationships. The Chipewyans who traded with the company suffered severely due to the company's inability to provision them, and by an ongoing smallpox epidemic that was ravaging Indian populations throughout North America; the Chipewyans lost half their population by some estimates. The company's inability to trade with them for two season drove many survivors to develop trading relationships with Montreal.

Neither Hearne nor Marten was sanctioned by the company for surrendering; both returned to their posts the following year. When the French took Fort Prince of Wales, they found Samuel Hearne's journal, which La Pérouse claimed as a prize. The journal contained Hearne's accounts of his explorations of the northern reaches of North America. Hearne pleaded with La Pérouse for its return, a request the latter granted on condition that it be published. Whether Hearne had intended to publish it anyway is unclear, but by 1792, the year of Hearne's death, he had prepared a manuscript, and submitted it for publication. It was published in 1795 as A Journey from Prince of Wale's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean.

La Pérouse was rewarded by King Louis with a rise in pay of 800 livres; the exploit drew also drew popular acclaim in Europe and North America. His next major assignment was to lead a voyage of exploration into the Pacific Ocean in 1785. His fleet, in which Fleuriot de Langle served as second in command, was last seen in the vicinity of Australia in spring 1788; although remnants of the expedition have been found, his fate is unknown.