This expedition had resulted in two cheap conquests for La Pérouse. But the fortunes of war bade fair to alter the situation. The Company sent in a bill to the British Government of many thousands of pounds for failing to protect their fort on Churchill River; and when peace was proclaimed, the French plenipotentiary agreed on behalf of his master to settle this bill. Fort Prince of Wales was never rebuilt. Its ruins stand, to-day, to mark the most northern fortress on the continent of North America, scarcely inferior in strength to Louisburg or to Quebec. "Its site," remarks Dr. Bell, "was admirably chosen; its design and armament were once perfect; interesting still as a relic of bygone strife, but useful now only as a beacon for the harbour it had failed to protect." Although the French themselves sustained no loss from the English in their brief campaign against the fort; yet, owing to the severity of the climate and their own inexperience, they lost five large boats, a considerable quantity of merchandise and fifteen soldiers who were drowned in Hays' River after the surrender of the fort. FOOTNOTES: [77] The Eastern traders were always known by this title, as though hailing from Boston, in contradistinction to the "King George men." [78] Upon the new post was bestowed the name of Cumberland House. [79] The following were the prices paid by the Company about 1780, at its inland posts:-- A gun 20 Beaver skins. A strand blanket 10 do. A white do. 8 do. An axe of one pound weight 3 do. Half a pint of gunpowder 1 do. Ten balls 1 do. The principal profits accrued from the sale of knives, beads, flint, steels, awls and other small articles. Tobacco fetched one beaver skin per foot of "Spencer's Twist," and rum "not very strong," two beaver skins per bottle. [80] "What folly," asks one of the Company's servants, "could be more egregious than to erect a fort of such extent, strength and expense and only allow thirty-nine men to defend it?" [81] An account of Hearne's journey was found in MS. among the papers of the Governor, and La Pérouse declares in his memoirs that Hearne was very pressing that it should be returned to him as his private property. "The goodness of La Pérouse's heart induced him to yield to this urgent solicitation, and he returned the MS. to him on the express condition, however, that he should print and publish it immediately on his arrival in England." "Notwithstanding this," observes Mr. Fitzgerald, "Hearne's travels did not appear until 1795, _i.e._, twenty-three years after they were performed." This gentleman, so distinguished in his zeal to prove a case against the Company, evidently overlooks the circumstance of the gist of travels having been issued in pamphlet form in 1773 and again in 1778-80. The volume of 1795 was merely an application--the product of Hearne's leisure upon retirement.