Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse

Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (; variant spelling: ''La Pérouse''; 23 August 17411788?), often called simply Lapérouse, was a French naval officer and explorer. Having enlisted at the age of 15, he had a successful naval career and in 1785 was appointed to lead a scientific expedition around the world. His ships stopped in Chile, Hawaii, Alaska, California, Mauritius, Reunion, Macau, Japan, Russia, and Australia, before wrecking on the reefs of Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands.

Early career

Jean-François de Galaup was born near Albi, France. His family was ennobled in 1558.

Lapérouse studied in a Jesuit college, and joined the Navy as a Garde-Marine in Brest on 19 November 1756. In 1757 he was appointed to the French ship ''Célèbre'' and participated in a supply expedition to the fort of Louisbourg in New France. Lapérouse also took part in a second supply expedition in 1758 to Louisbourg, but as this was in the early years of the Seven Years' War, the fort was under siege and the expedition was forced to make a circuitous route around Newfoundland to avoid British patrols.

In 1759, Lapérouse was wounded in the Battle of Quiberon Bay, where he was serving aboard ''Formidable''. He was captured and briefly imprisoned before being paroled back to France; he was formally exchanged in December 1760. He participated in a 1762 attempt by the French to gain control of Newfoundland, escaping with the fleet when the British arrived in force to drive them out.

At the outbreak of the Anglo-French War in 1778, Lapérouse was given command of the 32-gun frigate ''Amazone''. On 7 October 1779, he captured the 20-gun HMS ''Ariel''. Lapérouse was promoted to Captain on 4 April 1780, and was part of the Expédition particulière under Admiral Ternay, departing Brest on 2 May 1780. From October to November 1780, ''Amazone'' sailed from Rhode Island to Lorient, and from there to the Caribbean.

Lapérouse then transferred to ''Astrée''. In the summer of 1781, he was offered command of the 50-gun ''Sagittaire'', but as his crew was sick with scurvy, he requested permission to keep command of ''Astrée'', and was appointed to lead a frigate division, along with ''Hermione'', under Latouche-Tréville.

Lapérouse escorted a convoy to the West Indies in December 1781, participated in the attack on St. Kitts in February 1782 and then fought in the defeat at the Battle of the Saintes against the squadron of Admiral Rodney. In August 1782 he made his name by capturing two English forts ( Prince of Wales Fort and York Fort) on the coast of Hudson Bay, but allowed the survivors, including Governor Samuel 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 young creole of modest origins whom he had met on Île de France (present-day Mauritius) eight years earlier.

Scientific expedition around the world

Objectives

Lapérouse was appointed in 1785 by Louis XVI and by the Secretary of State of the Navy, the Marquis 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 adventurer William Bolts, who had earlier tried unsuccessfully to interest Louis's brother-in-law, the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II (brother of Queen Marie 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".

The expedition's aims were to complete the Pacific discoveries of James 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 were ''L'Astrolabe'' (under Fleuriot de Langle) and '' La Boussole'', both 500 tons. They were storeships reclassified as frigates 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 the Philippines). 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.

Preparations

As early as March 1785, Lapérouse proposed that Paul Monneron, who had been chosen as the expedition's chief engineer, go to London 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.

The best-known figure from Cook's missions, Joseph Banks, intervened at the Royal 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, particularly Ramsden. He even surpassed Fleurieu's directives by acquiring two sextants of a new type.

Crew

Lapérouse was well liked by his men. Among his crew there were ten scientists: Joseph Lepaute Dagelet (1751–1788), an astronomer and mathematician; 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. Another of the scientists was Jean-André Mongez. Even both chaplains were scientifically schooled.

One of the young men who applied for the voyage was a 16-year-old Corsican named Napoléon Bonaparte. Bonaparte, a second lieutenant from Paris' 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 precision chronometers and the distance between the moon and the sun followed by theodolite triangulations or bearings taken from the ship, 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.

Chile and Hawaii

Lapérouse and his 220 men left Brest on 1 August 1785, rounded Cape Horn, and investigated the Spanish colonial government in the Captaincy General of Chile. He arrived on 9 April 1786 at Easter Island
He then sailed to the Sandwich Islands, the present-day Hawaiian Islands, where he became the first European to set foot on the island of Maui.

Alaska

Lapérouse sailed on to Alaska, where he landed near Mount St. Elias in late June 1786 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 called ''Port des Français'' by Lapérouse, but now known as Lituya Bay. The men visited the Tlingit people. (This encounter was dramatized briefly in episode 13 of Carl Sagan's '' Cosmos: A Personal Voyage''.) Next, he headed south, exploring the northwest coast, including the outer islands of present-day British Columbia

California

Lapérouse sailed between 10 and 30 August all the way south to the Spanish Las Californias Province, present-day California. He reportedly observed the only historical eruption of Mount Shasta on 7 September 1786, although this account is now discredited. He stopped at the Presidio 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 1797 ''Atlas du voyage de La Pérouse''. He arrived in Monterey Bay and at the Presidio of Monterey on 14 September 1786. He examined the Spanish settlements, ranchos, and missions. He reported, "The country of the Ecclemachs extends above 20 leagues to the outh-astward of Monterey." He made critical notes on the missionary treatment of the California indigenous peoples with the Indian Reductions at the Franciscan run missions. Lapérouse likened conditions at a mission to a slave plantation. France and Spain were on friendly terms at this time. Lapérouse was the first non-Spanish visitor to California since Drake in 1579 , and the first to come to California after the founding of Spanish missions and ''presidios'' (military forts).

East Asia

Lapérouse again crossed the Pacific Ocean in 100 days, arriving at Macau, where he sold the furs acquired in Alaska, dividing the profits among his men. The next year, on 9 April 1787, after a visit to Manila, he set out for the northeast Asian coasts. He saw the island of Quelpart, in the Korean Peninsula (present-day Cheju in South 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 of Korea.

Japan and Russia

Lapérouse then sailed northward to Northeast Asia and ''Oku-Yeso'' Island, present day Sakhalin Island, Russia. The Ainu people, ''Oku-Yeso'' Island residents, drew him a map showing: their second domain of Yezo Island, present day Hokkaidō Island, Japan; and the coasts of Tartary, Russia on mainland Asia. Lapérouse wanted to sail north through the narrow Strait of Tartary between ''Oku-Yeso'' Island and mainland Asia, but failed. Instead, he turned south, and then sailed east through La Pérouse Strait, between ''Oku-Yeso'' Island (Sakhalin) and ''Yezo'' (Hokkaidō), where he met more Ainu in their third domain of the Kuril Islands, and explored.

Lapérouse then sailed north and reached Petropavlovsk on the Russian Kamchatka peninsula on 7 September 1787. Here they rested from their trip, and enjoyed the hospitality of the Russians and Kamchatkans. In letters received from Paris, Lapérouse was ordered to investigate the settlement the British were establishing in