Then the Company
awakened from its long sleep with a mighty stir.
The annual boats that came out to Hudson Bay in the summer of 1769
anchored on the offing, six miles from the gray walls of Fort Prince of
Wales, and roared out a salute of cannon becoming the importance of
ships that bore almost revolutionary commissions. The fort cannon on
the walls of Churchill River thundered their answer. A pinnace came
scudding over the waves from the ships. A gig boat launched out from
the fort to welcome the messengers. Where the two met halfway, packets
of letters were handed to Moses Norton, governor at Fort Prince of
Wales, commanding him to despatch his most intrepid explorers for the
discovery of unknown rivers, strange lands, rumored copper mines, and
the mythical Northwest Passage that was supposed to lead directly to
China.
The fort lay on a spit of sand running out into the bay at the mouth of
Churchill River. It was three hundred yards long by three hundred
yards wide, with four bastions, in three of which were stores and wells
of water. The fourth bastion contained the powder-magazine. The walls
were thirty feet wide at the bottom and twenty feet wide at the top, of
hammer-dressed stone, mounted with forty great cannon. A commodious
stone house, furnished with all the luxuries of the chase, stood in the
centre of the courtyard. This was the residence of the governor.
Offices, warehouses, barracks, and hunters' lodges were banked round
the inner walls of the fort.
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