The freedom, vigor, and wildness of Canadian life developed men early, and Iberville entered the French Navy as midshipman at the age of fourteen. His first service of note, however, was as a soldier in the wilds of his native land, in the Canadian overland campaign to recover possession of an Indian trading post on Hudson Bay, which it was claimed the English had illegally seized. Iberville volunteered for this campaign under De Troye, and exhibited such judgment and vigor as caused him to be put in command of a small party of nine, some say twelve, men with two canoes, wherewith he did not hesitate to attack and compel the unconditional surrender of an English ship manned by fourteen, including the commander of Hudson Bay. St. Helene, his brother, meantime captured another vessel, and with the two as means of transport, the two brothers pushed on to Fort Quitchitchouen, which surrendered after withstanding a sharp cannonade. These victories not only insured to the French the command of the entire southern part of Hudson Bay, but put them in possession of a vast amount of stores. Indeed, so destructive to English interests were the campaigns of Iberville in 1687-88, that the Hudson Bay Company declared that their actual losses amounted to 108,520 pounds sterling, an enormous sum in the young colonies of that day. The consequential losses must have been very great, for we are told that the value of furs obtained in the trade of one year amounted to 400,000 livres (francs). Iberville remained in charge of the country which his valor had recaptured, and in 1688, while the Iroquois were ravaging Canada, waged successful war in Hudson Bay. One of his lieutenants, capturing an English official, found on him an order from the London Company to proclaim English sovereignty over the whole bay. Later two ships, with twenty-eight cannon and eight swivels, appeared before St. Anne in order to expel the French. Eventually Iberville compelled the surrender of the English ships, and releasing the smaller vessel for the safe transport of such prisoners as he paroled, himself navigated the larger ship, with eleven Hudson Bay pilots held prisoners, to Quebec through Hudson Strait. In 1690 Iberville volunteered, under his brother St. Helene, for the retaliatory expedition in mid-winter against Schenectady, wherein a large number of the inhabitants of that unhappy town were ruthlessly massacred by the French and their Indian allies. Iberville seems to have exerted his influence to restrain the savagery of the Indians, and saved the life of at least one Englishman.