Later Life
Hearne was sent to Saskatchewan to establish Fort Cumberland, the second inland trading post for the Hudson's Bay Company in 1774 (the first being Henley House, established in 1743, 200 km up the Albany River). Having learned to live off the land, he took minimal provisions for the eight Europeans and two Home Guard Crees who accompanied him.
After consulting some local chiefs, Hearne chose a strategic site on Pine Island Lake in the Saskatchewan River, 60 miles (97 km) above Fort Paskoya. The site was linked to both the Saskatchewan River trade route and the Churchill system.
He became governor of Fort Prince of Wales on 22 January 1776. On 8 August 1782 Hearne and his complement of 38 civilians were confronted by a French force under the comte de La Pérouse composed of three ships, including one of 74 guns, and 290 soldiers. As a veteran Hearne recognized hopeless odds and surrendered without a shot. Hearne and some of the other prisoners were allowed to sail back to England from Hudson Strait in a small sloop.
Hearne returned the next year but found trade had deteriorated. The Indian population had been decimated by smallpox and starvation due to the lack of normal hunting supplies of powder and shot. Matonabbee had committed suicide and the rest of Churchill’s leading Indians had moved to other posts. Hearne's health began to fail and he delivered up command at Churchill on 16 August 1787 and returned to England.
In the last decade of his life he used his experiences on the barrens, on the northern coast, and in the interior to help naturalists like Thomas Pennant in their researches. His friend William Wales was a teacher at Christ's Hospital and he assisted Hearne to write A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean. This was published in 1795, three years after Hearne's death of dropsy in November 1792 at the age of 47.
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