The governor at that time was Samuel Hearne, a handsome giant with a rubicund face. It was Hearne who in 1782 had surrendered without a blow the great stone fort at the mouth of the river. That fort had cost the Company forty years to build, and it was barely completed when Hearne raised the white flag at the challenge of the French admiral, La Pérouse. To the mind of young Thompson, this act was enough to stamp the governor as a coward. It was, none the less, the same Hearne who had succeeded in penetrating as far North as the mouth of the Coppermine river, and was thus the first white man to reach the margin of the Arctic ocean. Nevertheless, Thompson disliked him. Like so many others at the close of the eighteenth century, Hearne was infected with the doctrines of Voltaire, and his atheism shocked the sensitive mind of the pious boy. To a lad of Thompson's ambition, the life of a hunter afforded no sort of satisfaction, and he dreaded lest he should succumb to the deadening influence of his surroundings. He complained to Hearne that his lack of clerical employment might lead to the loss of his penmanship, and was barely satisfied when the governor handed him an invoice or two to copy, and gave him occupation for a few days upon the manuscript of his _Journey to the North_. The idleness of which Thompson complained was, however, to end before long. With the arrival of the annual ship in 1785, orders came that the young apprentice should proceed to York factory, the principal dépôt of the Company, situated near the mouth of the Hayes river, one hundred and fifty miles further up the Bay. South of the Churchill, the rim of granite which hems the coast recedes for some miles inland, leaving a vast waste of marshy alluvial between the hills and the water line. Trees there are none, and the monotony of the landscape is relieved only by boulders which the ice has scattered over the face of the land. To journey on foot the length of this swamp, with two drunken Indians alone for company, was enough to test the courage and reliance of a boy of fifteen. Equipped with but a single blanket to protect him from the chill of the September nights, the young David was ferried across the river and put ashore on the south bank. The day was fine; but the Indians had been given their usual gallon of grog on leaving the fort, and they soon reduced themselves to a drunken stupor. A night in the open, however, restored them to their senses. The next morning the party made an early start, marching till evening without breakfast or dinner. During the day, the Indians had shot a goose and three ducks. When they finally came to something like a dry spot by the bank of a stream, the wild fowl were hastily cooked and eaten; and the wearied travellers, wrapped in their blankets, flung themselves on the ground to sleep.