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Hudson Bay expedition 1782

Hudson Bay expedition: Vue du fort prince de Walles dans la baie d'Hudson en 1782
Image: Lieutenant de frégate Lefebvre, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.

Key facts

Date8 August 1782Wikidata
Year1782Wikidata P585 (point in time)
EraEarly modern (1500–1799)derived from year
LocationCanadaNatural Earth (modern borders)
ContinentNorth AmericaNatural Earth
War / conflictAmerican Revolutionary WarWikidata P361
ParticipantsFrance, Kingdom of Great BritainWikidata P710
Coordinates58.7972, -94.2134Wikidata P625

About the battle

The Hudson Bay expedition was a series of military raids on the fur trading outposts and fortifications of the British Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) on the shores of Hudson Bay by a French Navy squadron under the command of the Comte de Lapérouse. Setting sail from Cap-Français, Saint-Domingue in 1782, the expedition was part of a series of globe-spanning naval conflicts between France and Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War.

Operating under secret orders from Charles Eugène Gabriel de La Croix, the French Secretary of State of the Navy, Lapérouse and his squadron set sail from Cap-Français in May 1782, and arrived in the Hudson Bay in early August. Both Prince of Wales Fort and York Factory, two trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company, surrendered without a fight to the French, though an HBC merchantman that evaded the French fleet spirited away some of the furs stored at York Factory.

Some of captured British prisoners were put on a company sloop and allowed to sail back to England, while others were pressed into service aboard the French squadron. Those serving on Lapérouse's squadron, which had sailed with minimal winter provisioning to maintain secrecy, suffered numerous hardships including scurvy and other diseases.

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Hudson Bay expedition (revision 1370622976), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.

Location

58.7972, -94.2134 · Canada

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Nearby battles

Other battles of the American Revolutionary War

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