Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse | |
|---|---|
.jpg) 1778 portrait of Lapérouse byGeneviève Brossard de Beaulieu | |
| Born | 23 August 1741 (1741-08-23) |
| Died | c. 1788 (aged 46–47) Vanikoro,Solomon Islands (presumed) |
| Allegiance | France |
| Branch | French Navy |
| Years of service | 1756–1788 |
| Rank | Chef d'escadre |
| Commands |
|
| Battles / wars | |
| Awards | Chevalier de Saint-Louis |
Chef d'escadreJean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (French:[lapeʁuz]; 23 August 1741 –c. 1788) was aFrench Navy officer and explorer. Having enlisted in the Navy at the age of 15, he had a successful career and in 1785 was appointed to lead a scientific expedition around the world. His ships stopped inChile,Hawaii,Alaska,California,Macau, thePhilippines,Korea,Russia,Japan,Samoa,Tonga, andAustralia before wrecking on the reefs ofVanikoro in theSolomon Islands.
Jean-François de Galaup was born on 23 August 1741 nearAlbi, France.[1][2] His family had been ennobled in 1558.[3]
Lapérouse studied in aJesuit college and joined the Navy as aGarde-Marine inBrest on 19 November 1756. In 1757 he was appointed to the French shipCélèbre and participated in asupply expedition to the fort ofLouisbourg inNew France. Lapérouse also took part in a second supply expedition in 1758 to Louisbourg, but as it was in the early years of theSeven Years' War thefort was undersiege and the expedition was forced to make a circuitous route aroundNewfoundland to avoid British patrols.
In 1759 Lapérouse was wounded in theBattle of Quiberon Bay, where he was serving aboardFormidable. He was captured by the British and briefly imprisoned before being paroled back to France; he was formally exchanged in December 1760.[4] He participated in a 1762attempt by the French to gain control ofNewfoundland, escaping with the fleet when the British arrived in force to drive them out.
At the outbreak of theAnglo-French War in 1778, Lapérouse was given command of the 32-gun frigateAmazone. On 7 October 1779, he captured the 20-gunHMSAriel.[5] Lapérouse was promoted to Captain on 4 April 1780, and was part of theExpédition Particulière under AdmiralTernay, departing Brest on 2 May 1780.[5] From October to November 1780,Amazone sailed fromRhode Island toLorient, and from there to the Caribbean.[5]
Lapérouse then transferred toAstrée. In the summer of 1781, he was offered command of the 50-gunSagittaire, but as his crew was sick withscurvy, he requested permission to keep command ofAstrée, and was appointed to lead a frigate division, along withHermione, underLatouche-Tréville.[6]
Lapérouse escorted a convoy to theWest Indies in December 1781, participated in theattack on St. Kitts in February 1782 and then fought in the defeat at theBattle of the Saintes against the squadron ofAdmiral Rodney. In August 1782, he made his name bycapturing two British trading posts (thePrince of Wales Fort and York Fort) on the coast ofHudson Bay, but allowed the survivors, including GovernorSamuel Hearne of Prince of Wales Fort, to sail off to England in exchange for a promise to release French prisoners held in England. The next year, his family finally consented to his marriage to Louise-Eléonore Broudou, a youngcreole of modest origins whom he had met onÎle de France (present-dayMauritius)[7] eight years earlier.[8]
Lapérouse was appointed in 1785 byLouis XVI and by theSecretary of State of the Navy, theMarquis de Castries, to lead an expedition around the world.Many countries were initiating voyages of scientific explorations at that time.
Louis XVI and his court had been stimulated by a proposal from the Dutch-born merchant adventurerWilliam Bolts, who had earlier tried unsuccessfully to interest Louis's brother-in-law, theHoly Roman Emperor Joseph II (brother of QueenMarie Antoinette), in a similar voyage. The French court adopted the concept (though not its author, Bolts), leading to the dispatch of the Lapérouse expedition.Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu, Director of Ports and Arsenals, stated in the draft memorandum on the expedition that he submitted to the Louis XVI: "the utility which may result from a voyage of discovery ... has made me receptive to the views put to me by Mr. Bolts relative to this enterprise". But Fleurieu explained to the King: "I am not proposing at all, however, the plan for this voyage as it was conceived by Mr. Bolts".[9]
The expedition's aims were to complete thePacific discoveries ofJames Cook (whom Lapérouse greatly admired), correct and complete maps of the area, establish trade contacts, open new maritime routes and enrich French science and scientific collections. His ships wereL'Astrolabe (underFleuriot de Langle) andLa Boussole,[10] both 500 tons. They were storeships reclassified asfrigates for the occasion. Their objectives were geographic, scientific, ethnological, economic (looking for opportunities for whaling or fur trading), and political (the eventual establishment of French bases or colonial cooperation with their Spanish allies in thePhilippines). They were to explore both the north and south Pacific, including the coasts of the Far East and of Australia, and send back reports through existing European outposts in the Pacific.
As early as March 1785, Lapérouse proposed thatPaul Mérault Monneron, who had been chosen as the expedition's chief engineer, go toLondon to find out about the anti-scurvy measures recommended by Cook and the exchange items used by Cook in his dealings with native peoples, and to buy scientific instruments of English manufacture.[note 1]
The best-known figure from Cook's missions,Joseph Banks,[note 2] intervened at theRoyal Society to obtain for Monneron two inclining compasses that had belonged to Cook. Furnished with a list produced by Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu, Monneron also bought scientific instruments from some of the largest English firms, particularlyRamsden. He even surpassed Fleurieu's directives by acquiring twosextants of a new type.
TheMontgolfier brothers gave to Laperouse two prototypes of the newly invented hot air balloons to carry on board theAstrolabe. There is no evidence that they were used during the voyage.[11]
Lapérouse was well liked by his men. Among his crew there were ten scientists:Joseph Lepaute Dagelet (1751–1788), an astronomer and mathematician;[12]Robert de Lamanon, a geologist;La Martinière, a botanist; a physicist; three naturalists; and three illustrators,Gaspard Duché de Vancy and an uncle and nephew named Prévost.[13] Another of the scientists wasJean-André Mongez. Even both chaplains were scientifically schooled.
One of the young men who applied for the voyage was a 16-year-old Corsican namedNapoléon Bonaparte.[14] Bonaparte, a second lieutenant fromParis' military academy at the time, made the preliminary list but he was ultimately not chosen for the voyage list and remained behind in France. At the time, Bonaparte was interested in serving in the navy rather than army because of his proficiency in mathematics and artillery, both valued skills on warships.
Copying the work methods of Cook's scientists, the scientists on this voyage would base their calculations of longitude on precisionchronometers and thedistance between the Moon and the Sun followed bytheodolitetriangulations or bearings taken from the ship,[15] the same as those taken by Cook to produce his maps of the Pacific islands. As regards geography, Lapérouse decisively showed the rigour and safety of the methods proven by Cook. From his voyage, the resolution of the problem of longitude was evident and mapping attained a scientific precision. Impeded (as Cook had been) by the continual mists enveloping the northwestern coast of America, he did not succeed any better in producing complete maps, though he managed to fill in some of the gaps.
Lapérouse and his 220 men leftBrest on 1 August 1785,[16] roundedCape Horn, and investigated theSpanish colonial government in theCaptaincy General of Chile.[17] He arrived on 9 April 1786 atEaster Island.[18] He then sailed to the Sandwich Islands, the present-dayHawaiian Islands,[19] where he became the first European to set foot on the island ofMaui.
Lapérouse sailed on toAlaska, where he landed nearMount Saint Elias in late June 1786[20] and explored the environs. On 13 July 1786 a barge and two longboats, carrying 21 men, were lost in the heavy currents of the bay calledPort des Français by Lapérouse, but now known asLituya Bay.[21] The men visited theTlingit people.[22] This encounter was dramatized briefly in episode 13 ofCarl Sagan'sCosmos: A Personal Voyage. Next, he headed south, exploring the northwest coast, including the outer islands of present-dayBritish Columbia.[23][24]
Lapérouse sailed between 10 and 30 August all the way south to the SpanishLas Californias Province, present-dayCalifornia. He reportedly observed the only historical eruption ofMount Shasta on 7 September 1786, although this account is now discredited.[25][26] He stopped at thePresidio of San Francisco long enough to create an outline map of the Bay Area,Plan du port de St. François, situé sur la côte de la Californie septentrionale ("Map of the port of San Francisco, situated on the coast of Northern California"), which was reproduced as Map 33 in L. Aubert's 1797Atlas du voyage de La Pérouse. He arrived inMonterey Bay and at thePresidio of Monterey on 14 September 1786.[27] He examined the Spanish settlements,ranchos, andmissions. He reported, "The country of theEcclemachs extends above 20leagues to the [south-]eastward of Monterey."[28] He made critical notes on themissionary treatment of theCalifornia indigenous peoples with theIndian Reductions at theFranciscan run missions. Lapérouse likened conditions at a mission to a slave plantation.[29] France and Spain were on friendly terms at this time. Lapérouse was thefirst non-Spanish visitor to California sinceDrake in 1579[citation needed], and the first to come to California after the founding of Spanish missions andpresidios (military forts).
Lapérouse again crossed the Pacific Ocean in 100 days, arriving atMacau, where he sold the furs acquired inAlaska, dividing the profits among his men.[30] The next year, on 9 April 1787,[31] after a visit toManila, he set out for the northeast Asian coasts. He saw the island of Quelpart, in theKorean Peninsula (present-dayCheju inSouth Korea), which had been visited by Europeans only once before when a group of Dutchmen shipwrecked there in 1635. He visited the Asian mainland coasts ofKorea.
Lapérouse then sailed northward toNortheast Asia andOku-Yeso Island, present daySakhalin Island, Russia. TheAinu people,Oku-Yeso Island residents, drew him a map showing: their second domain ofYezo Island, present dayHokkaidō Island, Japan; and the coasts ofTartary, Russia on mainland Asia. Lapérouse wanted to sail north through the narrowStrait of Tartary betweenOku-Yeso Island and mainland Asia, but failed. Instead, he turned south, and then sailed east throughLa Pérouse Strait, betweenOku-Yeso Island (Sakhalin) andYezo (Hokkaidō), where he met more Ainu in their third domain of theKuril Islands, and explored.
Lapérouse then sailed north and reachedPetropavlovsk on the RussianKamchatka peninsula on 7 September 1787.[32] Here they rested from their trip, and enjoyed the hospitality of theRussians and Kamchatkans. In letters received from Paris, Lapérouse was ordered to investigate the settlement the British were establishing inNew South Wales, Australia.Barthélemy de Lesseps, son of the French vice consul atKronstadt, Russia, who had joined the expedition as an interpreter, disembarked in Petropavlovsk to bring the expedition's ships' logs, charts, and letters to France, which he reached after a year-long, epic journey acrossSiberia and Russia.[33]
Lapérouse next stopped in the Navigator Islands (Samoa), on 6 December 1787.[34] Just before he left, the Samoans attacked a group of his men atMassacre Bay, killing twelve, among whom were Lamanon andde Langle, commander ofL'Astrolabe. Twenty men were wounded.[35] The expedition drifted toTonga, for resupply and help, and later recognized theîle Plistard andNorfolk Island.
The expedition continued to Australia,[36] arriving offBotany Bay on 24 January 1788.[37] There Lapérouse encountered a British convoy (known later as the "First Fleet") led by CaptainArthur Phillip RN, who was to establish thepenal colony ofNew South Wales. While it had been intended that the colony would be located at Botany Bay, Phillip had quickly decided that the site was unsuitable and the colony would instead be established atSydney Cove inPort Jackson.[38] High winds—which had hindered Lapérouse's ships in entering Botany Bay—delayed the relocation until 26 January (later commemorated asAustralia Day).
The French were received courteously and spent six weeks at the British colony (this would be their last recorded landfall). While Lapérouse and Phillip did not meet, French and British officers visited each other formally on at least 11 occasions,[39] and offered each other assistance and supplies.[37] The senior French officer to visit Sydney Cove and wait upon Governor Phillip wasRobert Sutton de Clonard, Captain of theAstrolabe, who took despatches to him for forwarding to the French ambassador in London by the returningAlexander transport. Clonard was an Irishman (fromWexford) in the French service, "esteemed for his bravery, and beloved for his humanity". After de Langle had been killed during the expedition's visit toTutuila, he had succeeded him as commander of theAstrolabe.[40][41][42]
During their stay, the French established an observatory and a garden, held masses, and made geological observations.[43] Lapérouse also took the opportunity to send journals, charts and letters back to Europe, with the British merchant shipAlexander, which had come to Sydney as part of the First Fleet.[44] The chaplain fromL'Astrolabe, FatherLouis Receveur, never recovered from injuries he had sustained in a clash with indigenous people in the Samoan Islands and died at Botany Bay on 17 February; Receveur was buried on shore atFrenchman's Cove.
On 10 March,[37] after taking on sufficient wood and fresh water, the French expedition left New South Wales—bound forNew Caledonia,Santa Cruz, theSolomons, theLouisiades, and the western and southern coasts of Australia. While Lapérouse had reported in a letter from Port Jackson that he expected to be back in France by June 1789, neither he nor any members of his expedition were seen again by Europeans. Louis XVI is recorded as having asked, on the morning of hisexecution in January 1793, "Any news of La Pérouse?"[45]
Documents that had been relayed to France from Lapérouse's expedition were published inParis in 1797, under the titleVoyage de La Pérouse autour du monde ("The voyage of La Pérouse around the world").[46][47] In 1825, another French naval officer, CaptainHyacinthe de Bougainville, founded the Lapérouse Monument at Frenchman's Bay, near Receveur's grave. The bay later became part of the suburb ofLa Perouse. The anniversary of Receveur's death, Lapérouse Day (on varying dates in February/March) andBastille Day (14 July) have long been marked at the monument (along with Bougainville).
On 25 September 1791, Rear AdmiralAntoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux departed Brest in search of Lapérouse. His expedition followed Lapérouse's proposed path through the islands northwest of Australia while at the same time making scientific and geographic discoveries. The expedition consisted of two ships,Recherche andEspérance.[48]
In May 1793, Entrecasteaux sightedSanta Cruz, now part of theSolomon Islands, and another, uncharted, island to the southeast; this island wasVanikoro. The French did not approach Vanikoro, only recording it on their charts before sailing away to explore the Solomon Islands further. Two months later, Entrecasteaux died ofscurvy.[49] The botanistJacques Labillardière, attached to the expedition, eventually returned to France and published his account,Relation du voyage à la recherche de La Pérouse, in 1800.[50]
Franco-British relations deteriorated during theFrench Revolution, and unfounded rumours spread in France blaming the British for the tragedy which had occurred in the vicinity of the new colony. Before the mystery was solved, the French government had published the records of the voyage as far as Kamchatka:Voyage de La Pérouse autour du monde, 1–4 (Paris, 1797). These volumes are still used for cartographic and scientific information about the Pacific. Three English translations were published in 1798–99.[51]
In 1825Royal Navy CaptainThomas Manby brought a report, supported by presumptive evidence, that the spot where Lapérouse and his crew had perished was now ascertained. An English whaler discovered a long and low island, surrounded by innumerablebreakers, situated betweenNew Caledonia andNew Guinea, at nearly an equal distance from each island. The inhabitants came on board the whaler, and one of the chiefs had a cross of St. Louis hanging as an ornament from one of his ears. Other natives had swords, on which the word 'Paris' was engraved, and some were observed to have medals ofLouis XVI. One of the chiefs, aged about fifty, said that when he was young, a large ship was wrecked on a coral reef during a violentgale. During his voyage, Manby had seen several medals of the same kind, which Lapérouse had distributed among the natives ofCalifornia; and Lapérouse, on his departure fromBotany Bay, intimated that he intended to steer from the northern part ofNew Holland (Australia), and explore that archipelago.[52]
It was not until 1826 that an Irish sea captain,Peter Dillon, found enough evidence to piece together the events of the tragedy. InTikopia (one of the islands of Santa Cruz), he bought some swords that he had reason to believe had belonged to Lapérouse or his officers. He made enquiries and found that they came from nearby Vanikoro, where two big ships had broken up years earlier. Dillon managed to obtain a ship inBengal and sailed for Vanikoro, where he found cannonballs, anchors and other evidence of the remains of ships in water between coral reefs. A Tikopin by the name of Pu Ratia showed Dillon and his crew the direction to sail to Vanikoro. He was on board as well with a European by the name of Bushat who lived in Tikopia before the third trip of Dillon to Tikopia.
Dillon brought several of these artifacts back to Europe, as didDumont d'Urville in 1828.[53] Lesseps, the only member of the original expedition still alive at the time, identified them as all belonging toAstrolabe. From the information Vanikoro inhabitants gave Dillon, a rough reconstruction could be made of the disaster that struck Lapérouse. Dillon's reconstruction was later confirmed by the discovery and subsequent examination, in 1964, of what was believed to be the shipwreck ofBoussole.[54]
In May 2005, the shipwreck examined in 1964 was formally identified as that ofBoussole.[55] The 2005 expedition had embarked aboardJacques Cartier, a ship of theFrench Navy. The ship supported a multi-discipline scientific team assembled to investigate the "Mystery of Lapérouse".[56] The mission was named "Opération Vanikoro—Sur les traces des épaves de Lapérouse 2005" (Operation Vanikoro—Tracing the Lapérouse wrecks 2005).
A further similar mission was mounted in 2008.[57][58][59]
The 2008 expedition showed the commitment of France, in conjunction with the New CaledonianAssociation Salomon, to seek further answers about Lapérouse's mysterious fate. It received the patronage of thePresident of the French Republic as well as the support and co-operation of theFrench Ministry of Defence, theMinistry of Higher Education and Research, and the Ministry of Culture and Communication.
Preparation for this, the eighth expedition sent to Vanikoro, took 24 months. It brought together more technological resources than previously and involved two ships, 52 crew members and almost 30 scientists and researchers. On 16 September 2008, twoFrench Navy ships set out for Vanikoro fromNouméa (New Caledonia), and arrived on 15 October, thus recreating a section of the final voyage of discovery undertaken more than 200 years earlier by Lapérouse.[60][61][62][note 3]
Both ships had been wrecked on Vanikoro's reefs,Boussole first.Astrolabe was unloaded and taken apart. A group of men, probably the survivors ofBoussole, were massacred by the local inhabitants.[64] According to the islanders, some surviving sailors built a two-masted craft from the wreckage ofAstrolabe and left in a westward direction about nine months later, but what happened to them is unknown. Also, two men, one a "chief" and the other his servant, had remained behind, but had left Vanikoro a few years before Dillon arrived.[65]
Sven Wahlroos, in his 1989 book,Mutiny and Romance in the South Seas, suggests that there was a narrowly missed chance to rescue one or more of the survivors in 1791.[66] In November 1790, CaptainEdward Edwards—in command ofHMSPandora—had sailed from England with orders to comb the Pacific for the mutineers ofHMSBounty. In March of the following year,Pandora arrived atTahiti and picked up 14Bounty crewmen who had stayed on that island. Although some of the 14 had not joined the mutiny, all were imprisoned and shackled in a cramped "cage" built on the deck, which the men grimly nicknamed "Pandora's Box".Pandora then left Tahiti in search ofBounty and the leader of the mutiny,Fletcher Christian.
Captain Edwards' search for the remaining mutineers ultimately proved fruitless. However, when passing Vanikoro on 13 August 1791, he observed smoke signals rising from the island. Edwards, single-minded in his search forBounty and convinced that mutineers fearful of discovery would not be advertising their whereabouts, ignored the smoke signals and sailed on.
Wahlroos argues that the smoke signals were almost certainly a distress message sent by survivors of the Lapérouse expedition, which later evidence indicated were still alive on Vanikoro at that time—three years afterBoussole andAstrolabe had foundered. Wahlroos is "virtually certain" that Captain Edwards, whom he characterizes as one of England's most "ruthless", "inhuman", "callous", and "incompetent" naval captains, missed his chance to become "one of the heroes of maritime history" by solving the mystery of the lost Lapérouse expedition.[66]
Objects relating to the life and voyages of Lapérouse are held at The Lapérouse Museum inAlbi in southern France, and theMaritime Museum of New Caledonia.[67] Both museums contain objects recovered from the shipsAstrolabe andBoussole.[68] There is also the Lapérouse Museum inLa Perouse, which records his time in Australia.[69]
Places later named in honour of Lapérouse include:
The fate of Lapérouse, his ships and his men are the subjects of a chapter in the 1870 novelTwenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas byJules Verne. Lapérouse was also mentioned in episode "The Quest" of the seriesNorthern Exposure, wherein the character Joel (Rob Morrow) finds an old chart of the French explorer that will lead to a legendary "jewelled city of the North" (New York City).[70]
The novelLandfalls by Naomi J. Williams explores the Lapérouse expedition in depth.[71]
Henry David Thoreau mentions him (as "La Perouse") in his bookWalden. In the first chapter, "Economy", when writing about how indispensable it is to cultivate the habits of a businessman in anything one does, Thoreau describes these habits in a very long list, including
... taking advantage of the results of all exploring expeditions, using new passages and all improvements in navigation;—charts to be studied, the position of reefs and new lights and buoys to be ascertained, and ever, and ever, the logarithmic tables to be corrected, for by the error of some calculator the vessel often splits upon a rock that should have reached a friendly pier—there is the untold fate of La Perouse.
Jon Appleton composed a full-length opera based on the final voyage of Lapérouse,Le Dernier Voyage de Jean-Gallup de la Perouse.
In 1989, theGovernment of Australia commissioned from artistAnte Dabro (working inAustralia) a monumental bronze statue of de Galaup, for theFrenchBicentenary. It was installed at the Promenade d'Australie inParis.[72]
Lapérouse was born at Albi
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
