What shall we tell you? Tales, marvellous tales
Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest.

James Elroy Flecker, ‘The Golden Journey to Samarkand’

The ablest seaman in the French navy

FROM THE WRITINGS OF ERNEST SCOTT

JEAN-FRANCOIS DE GALAUP, COMTE de La Perouse, was born in 1741 at Albi, France. He entered the French navy at 15 and was wounded and captured in the battle with Admiral Hawke’s fleet off Belle-Isle in 1759. Repatriated from England and promoted lieutenant in April 1775 and captain in 1780, he fought the British with great success after France joined the American War and distinguished himself as a naval commander, capturing British ships and settlements but demonstrating his humanity and sense of honour by leaving the settlements enough arms and provisions to survive the oncoming winter, and allowing prisoners to return to Britain after promises that French prisoners would be released.

In 1783 Louis XVI decided to send an expedition to the Pacific to complete Captain Cook’s unfinished work and explore the passages in the Bering Sea. La Perouse was selected to lead the expedition in La Boussole with L’Astrolabe under the command of Captain de Langle. He left in August 1785 for Brazil, rounded Cape Horn, refitted in Chile, then sailed to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), Alaska, California, across the Pacific to Macao and Manila, and surveyed the coasts and territories north of Korea. He sailed up the Gulf of Tartary, put in to Kamchatka to replenish his supplies and sailed south to Samoa, where natives attacked a party from L’Astrolabe seeking water and killed de Langle and eleven others. His longboats were destroyed by the natives, but he had on board the frames of two new ones. A safe anchorage was required where they could be put together, so he sailed to Botany Bay, having read a description of the bay in Cook’s Voyages, and his ships were sighted off the coast on 24 January 1788 by the First Fleet.

When, in 1787, the British government entrusted Captain Arthur Phillip with a commission to establish a colony at Botany Bay, New South Wales, they gave him explicit directions as to where he should locate the settlement. ‘According to the best information which we have obtained,’ his instructions read, ‘Botany Bay appears to be the most eligible situation upon the said coast for the first establishment, possessing a commodious harbour and other advantages which no part of the said coast hitherto discovered affords.’

But Phillip was a trustworthy man who, in so serious a matter as the choice of a site for a town, did not follow blindly the commands of respectable elderly gentlemen thousands of miles away. It was his business to found a settlement successfully. To do that he must select the best site. After examining Botany Bay, he decided to take a trip up the coast and see if a better situation could not be found.

On 21 January 1788, he entered Port Jackson with three boats, and found there ‘the finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security’. He fixed upon a cove ‘which I honoured with the name of Sydney’.

While he was making the search, the eleven vessels composing the First Fleet lay in Botany Bay. He returned on the evening of the 23rd, and immediately gave orders that the whole company should as soon as possible sail for Port Jackson.

To the great astonishment of the Fleet, on the 24th, two strange ships made their appearance to the south of Solander Point. What could they be? Some guessed that they were English vessels with additional stores. Some supposed that they were Dutch. The more timid speculated on the possibility of attack, and there were according to Phillip, ‘temporary apprehensions, accompanied by a multiplicity of conjectures, many of them sufficiently ridiculous’.

Phillip remembered hearing that the French had an expedition of discovery either in progress or contemplation. He was the first to form a right opinion about them, but, wishing to be certain, sent the Supply out of the bay to get a nearer view and hoist the British colours. Lieutenant Ball, in command of that brig, after reconnoitring, reported that the ships were certainly not English. They were either French, Spanish or Portuguese. He could distinctly see the white field of the flag they flew, ‘but they were at too great a distance to discover if there was anything else on it’.

The flag, of course, showed the golden lilies of France on a white ground. This information satisfied Phillip, who was anxious to lose no time in getting his people ashore at Sydney Cove. He, therefore, determined to sail in the Supply on the 25th, to make preliminary arrangements, leaving Captain Hunter of the Sirius to convoy the Fleet round as soon as possible. The wind, just then, was blowing too strong for them to work out of the Bay.

Meanwhile, La Perouse, with the Boussole and the Astrolabe, was meeting with heavy weather in his attempt to double Point Solander. The wind blew hard from that quarter, and his ships were too heavy sailers to force their passage against wind and current combined. The whole of the 24th was spent in full sight of Botany Bay, which they could not enter. But their hearts were cheered by the spectacle of the pennants and ensigns on the eleven British vessels, plainly seen at intervals within, and the prospect of meeting Europeans again made them impatient to fetch their anchorage.

The Sirius was just about to sail when the French vessels entered the Bay at nine in the morning of 26 January, but Captain Hunter courteously sent over a lieutenant and midshipman, with his compliments and offers of such assistance as it was in his power to give. ‘I despatched an officer,’ records La Perouse, ‘to return my thanks to Captain Hunter, who by this time had his anchor a-peak and his topsails hoisted, telling him that my wants were confined to wood and water, of which we could not fail in this Bay; and I was sensible that vessels intended to settle a colony at such a distance from Europe could not be of any assistance to navigators.’

At Kamchatka the French had learned that the British were establishing a settlement in New South Wales; but La Perouse, when he arrived at Botany Bay, had no definite idea as to the progress they had made.

Relations between the English and French were most pleasant. It does not appear that Phillip and La Perouse ever met, or that the latter ever saw the beginnings of Sydney. His ships certainly never entered Port Jackson.

La Perouse expressed his gratification at the friendly relations established. He spoke of ‘frequent intercourse’ with the English, and said, ‘To the most polite attentions they have added every offer of service in their power; and it was not without regret that we saw them depart, almost immediately upon our arrival, for Port Jackson, fifteen miles to the northward of this place. Commodore Phillip had good reason to prefer that port, and he has left us sole masters of this bay.’

On 1 February Phillip sent Lieutenant King, afterwards Governor of New South Wales (1800–6), in a cutter, in company with Lieutenant Dawes of the Marines, to visit La Perouse, ‘and to offer him whatever he might have occasion for’. King relates that they were ‘received with the greatest politeness and attention by Monsieur de La Perouse and his officers’. He accepted an invitation to remain during the day with the French, to dine with the Commodore, and to return to Port Jackson next morning.

The complete history of the voyage was narrated to him and, after dinner on the Boussole, King was taken ashore, where he found the French ‘quite established, having thrown round their tents a stockade, guarded by two small guns’. This defence was needed to protect the frames of the two new longboats, which were being put together, from the natives; and also, it would appear, from a few escaped convicts, ‘whom he had dismissed with threats, giving them a day’s provision to carry them back to ye settlement’.

The longboats they were building were to replace those lost in Samoa.

We also learn from King a little about Pere Receveur, the Franciscan monk and scientist who had been badly wounded when Samoan natives attacked a landing party and killed Captain de Langle of the Astrolabe and eleven others. King found him ‘a man of letters and genius’. He was a collector of natural curiosities, having under his care ‘a great number of philosophical instruments’.

Receveur died shortly before La Perouse sailed away, and was buried at the foot of a tree, to which were nailed a couple of boards bearing an inscription. Governor Phillip, when the boards fell down, had the inscription engraved on a copper plate. A tomb was erected by the Baron de Bougainville in 1825.

La Perouse spoke to King of James Cook.

He informed me that every place where he has touched or been near, he found all the astronomical and nautical works of Captain Cook to be very exact and true, and concluded by saying, ‘Enfin, Monsieur Cook a tant fait qu’il ne m’a rien laisse a faire que d’ admirer ses oeuvres.’ (In short, Mr Cook has done so much that he has left me nothing to do but to admire his works.)

There is very little more to tell about those few weeks spent at Botany Bay before the navigator and his companions ‘vanished trackless into blue immensity’, as the poet Carlyle puts it.

It was the practice of La Perouse to sow seeds at places visited by his ships, with the object of experimenting with useful European plants that might be cultivated in other parts of the world. His own letters and journal do not show that he did so at Botany Bay; but George Bass, returning to Sydney in February 1798 from exploring the south coast, mentions that his sailors, being offered the opportunity to rest at Botany Bay, seemed inclined to ‘push for home rather than go up to the Frenchman’s Garden’.

There was certainly no thought of territorial acquisition on the part of the French. Here is the version of the visit given by La Perouse himself:

We made the land on the 23rd January. It has little elevation, and is scarcely possible to be seen at a greater distance than twelve leagues. The wind then became very variable; and, like Captain Cook, we met with currents, which carried us every day fifteen minutes south of our reckoning; so that we spent the whole of the 24th in plying in sight of Botany Bay, without being able to double Point Solander, which bore from us a league north. The wind blew strong from that quarter, and our ships were too heavy sailers to surmount the force of the wind and the currents combined; but that day we had a spectacle to which we had been altogether unaccustomed since our departure from Manilla. This was a British squadron, at anchor in Botany Bay, the pennants and ensigns of which we could plainly distinguish.

All Europeans are countrymen at such a distance from home, and we had the most eager impatience to fetch the anchorage; but the next day the weather was so foggy that it was impossible to discern the land, and we did not get in till the 26th, at nine in the morning, when we let go our anchor a mile from the north shore, in seven fathoms of water, on a good bottom of grey sand, abreast of the second bay.

The moment I made my appearance in the entrance of the Bay, a lieutenant and midshipman were sent aboard my vessel by Captain Hunter, commanding the British frigate Sirius. They offered from him all the services in his power; adding, however, that, as he was just getting under way to proceed to the northward, circumstances would not allow him to furnish us with provision, ammunition or sails; so that his offers of service were reduced to good wishes for the future success of our voyage.

From the lieutenant we learnt that the English squadron was commanded by Commodore Phillip, who had sailed from Botany Bay the previous evening in the Supply sloop, with four transports, in search of a more commodious place for a settlement further north. The lieutenant appeared to make a great mystery of Commodore Phillip’s plan, and we did not take the liberty of putting any questions to him on the subject; but we had no doubt that the intended settlement must be very near Botany Bay, since several boats were under sail for the place, and the passage certainly must be very short, as it was thought unnecessary to hoist them on board.

The crew of the English boat, less discreet than their officer, soon informed our people that they were only going to Port Jackson, sixteen miles north of Point Banks, where Commander Phillip had himself reconnoitred a very good harbour, which ran ten miles into the land, to the south-west, and in which the ships might anchor within pistol-shot of the shore, in water as smooth as that of a basin. We had, afterwards, but too frequent opportunities of hearing news of the English settlement, the deserters from which gave us a great deal of trouble and embarrassment.

Pieced together thus is nearly all we know about La Perouse during his visit to Botany Bay. What has become of the letter he wrote to Phillip recommending (according to King) the Pacific Islands as worthy of the attention of the new colony, ‘for the great quantity of stock with which they abound’? Apparently it is lost.

We should know even less than we do were it not that La Perouse obtained from Phillip permission to send home, by the next British ship leaving Port Jackson, his journal, some charts, and the drawings of his artists. This material, added to private letters and a few miscellaneous papers, was placed in charge of Lieutenant Shortland to be delivered to the French Ambassador in London, and formed part of the substance of the two volumes and atlas later published in Paris.

The Boussole and the Astrolabe sailed from Botany Bay on 10 March, 1788 and ‘the rest is silence’. We know what La Perouse intended to do. He wrote two letters to friends in France, explaining the program to be followed after sailing from Botany Bay.

His plan was to sail north, passing between Papua (New Guinea) and Australia by another channel than Endeavour Strait, if he could find one. During September and October he intended to visit the Gulf of Carpentaria, and thence sail down the west and along the south of Australia, to Tasmania, ‘but in such a manner that it may be possible for me to stretch northward in time to arrive at Ile-de-France [Mauritius] in the beginning of December, 1788’.

The letters sent from Sydney concluded with these words:

Adieu! I shall depart in good health, as are all my ship’s company. We would undertake six voyages round the world if it could afford to our country either profit or pleasure.

Time sped on; the date given for the arrival at Ile-de-France was passed; the year 1789 dawned and ticked off the tally of its days. But nothing was heard of La Perouse. People in France grew anxious. Not a word came to sustain or cheer. By 1791 all expectation of seeing the expedition return was abandoned.

But could not some news of its fate be ascertained? France was then in the throes of her great social earthquake; but it stands to the credit of the National Assembly that, amidst many turbulent projects and boiling passions, they found time and had the disposition to cause the fitting-out of a new expedition to search for tidings of those whose disappearance weighed heavily on the heart of the nation.

The decree was passed on 9 February, 1791. Two ships, the Recherche and the Esperance, were selected and placed under the command of Bruni d’Entrecasteaux. He had already had some experience in a part of the region to be searched, had been a governor of Ile-de-France, and during a South Sea voyage had named the cluster of islands east of Papua, now called the D’Entrecasteaux Group.

The Esperance was placed under the command of Captain Huon de Kermadec. The Huon River in Tasmania, and the Kermadec Islands, northeast of New Zealand, are named after him. Their instructions were based largely upon the letter from La Perouse quoted above, pointing out that remains of him would most probably be found in the neighbourhood of coasts which he had intended to explore, south of New Holland, where an immense stretch of coastline was so far utterly unknown.

Thus, for the second time, was a French navigator directed to explore the southern coasts of Australia; and had d’Entrecasteaux followed the plan laid down for him he would have forestalled the discoveries of Grant, Bass and Flinders. But the instructions impressed upon d’Entrecasteaux that his business primarily was not geographical discovery, but to get news of his lost compatriots.

But even so, is it not curious that the French should have been concerned with the exploration of southern Australia before the English thought about it? They made a third attempt by means of Nicholas Baudin’s expedition, during the Napoleonic Consulate, and again were unsuccessful, except in a very small measure.

It might have been expected that an expedition sent to discover traces of La Perouse would have made Botany Bay in the first instance, and, after collecting whatever evidence was available there, would have carefully followed the route that he had proposed to pursue.

But, after excellent charting, which ten years later commanded the cordial admiration of Flinders, d’Entrecasteaux sailed on a direct line to southern Tasmania, and thence to New Zealand, New Caledonia, and New Guinea, where he fell violently ill and died.

Esperance Bay, in Western Australia, is named after one of the ships of this expedition. Kermadec, commander of the Esperance, also died at New Caledonia, and the ships returned to France as rapidly as they could. They were detained by the Dutch at Sourabaya for several months, as prisoners of war, and did not reach Europe until March 1796.

Five French captains who brought expeditions to Australia at this period all ended in misfortune. La Perouse was drowned; de Langle was murdered; d’Entrecasteaux died miserably at sea; Kermadec, the fourth, had expired shortly before; and Baudin, the fifth, died at Port Louis on the homeward voyage.

The navigators of all nations were fascinated by the mystery attaching to the fate of La Perouse. Every ship that sailed the Pacific hoped to obtain tidings or remains. From time to time rumours arose of the discovery of relics. Flinders, sailing north from Port Jackson in the Investigator in 1802, kept a sharp lookout on the Barrier Reef, the possibility of finding some trace being ‘always present to my mind’. But no definite news came.

A new French voyage of exploration came down to the Pacific in 1817, under the command of Louis de Freycinet, who had been a lieutenant in Baudin’s expedition in 1800–4. The purpose was not chiefly to look for evidence concerning La Perouse, though naturally a keen scrutiny was maintained with this object in view. His ship, the Uranie, carried a woman among the crew: Madame de Freycinet, the wife of the commandant, who joined at Toulon, dressed as a ship’s boy, although of course no hint of Madame’s presence is given in the official history of the voyage.

In 1813 the British East India Company’s ship Hunter, voyaging from Calcutta to Sydney, called at the Fiji Islands. They discovered that several Europeans were living on one of the group. Some had been shipwrecked; some had deserted from vessels; but they had become accustomed to the life and preferred it.

The Hunter employed a party of them to collect sandalwood and beche-de-mer, one of her junior officers, Peter Dillon, being in charge. A quarrel with natives occurred, and all the Europeans were murdered, except Dillon, a Prussian named Martin Bushart, and a seaman, William Wilson.

After the affray Bushart would certainly have been slain had he remained, so he induced the captain of the Hunter to give him a passage to the first land reached. Bushart, a Fiji woman who was his wife, and a Lascar companion were landed on Barwell Island, or Tucopia.

Thirteen years later Peter Dillon was sailing in command of his own ship, the St Patrick, from Valparaiso to Pondicherry, when he sighted Tucopia. Curiosity prompted him to stop to enquire whether his old friend Martin Bushart was still alive. He hove-to, and shortly after two canoes put off from the land, bringing Bushart and the Lascar, both in excellent health.

Now, Dillon observed that the Lascar sold an old silver sword-guard to one of the St Patrick’s crew in return for a few fish hooks. This made him inquisitive. He asked the Prussian where it came from. Bushart informed him that when he first arrived at the island he saw in possession of the natives, not only this sword-guard, but also several chain plates, iron bolts, axes, the handle of a silver fork, some knives, tea cups, beads, bottles, a silver spoon bearing a crest and monogram, and a sword.

He asked where these articles were obtained, and the natives told him that they got them from the Mannicolo (or Vanikoro) cluster of islands, two days’ canoe voyage from Tucopia, in the Santa Cruz group. ‘Upon examining the sword minutely,’ wrote Dillon:

I discovered, or thought I discovered, the initials of Perouse stamped on it, which excited my suspicion and made me more exact in my inquiries. I then, by means of Bushart and the Lascar, questioned some of the islanders respecting the way in which their neighbours procured the silver and iron articles. They told me that the natives of Mannicolo stated that many years ago two large ships arrived at their islands; one anchored at the island of Whanoo, and the other at the island of Paiou, a little distance from each other.

Some time after they anchored, and before they had any communication with the natives, a heavy gale arose and both vessels were driven ashore. The ship that was anchored off Whanoo grounded upon the rocks. The natives came in crowds to the seaside, armed with clubs, spears, and bows and arrows, and shot some arrows into the ship, and the crew in return fired the guns and some musketry on them and killed several. The vessel, continuing to beat violently against the rocks, shortly afterwards went to pieces.

Some of the crew took to their boats, and were driven on shore, where they were to a man murdered on landing by the infuriated natives. Others threw themselves into the sea; but if they reached the shore it was only to share the fate of their wretched comrades, so that not a single soul escaped out of this vessel.

The ship wrecked on Paiou, according to the natives’ story, was driven on a sandy beach. Some arrows were fired into her, but the crew did not fire. They were restrained, and held up beads, axes and toys, making a demonstration of friendliness. As soon as the wind abated, an old chief came aboard the wrecked ship, where he was received in friendly fashion, and, going ashore, pacified his people.

The crew of the vessel, compelled to abandon her, carried the greater part of their stores ashore, where they built a small boat from the remains of the wreck. As soon as this craft was ready to sail, as many as could conveniently be taken embarked and sailed away. They were never heard of again. The remainder of the crew remained on the island until they died.

Such was the information collected by Captain Peter Dillon in 1826. He took away with him the sword-guard, but regretted to learn that the silver spoon had been beaten into wire by Bushart for making rings and ornaments for female islanders.

When he reached Calcutta, Dillon wrote an account of his discovery in a letter to the government of Bengal, and suggested that he should be sent in command of an expedition to search the Vanikoro cluster in the hope of finding some old survivor of La Perouse’s unhappy company, or at all events further remains of the ships. He had prevailed upon Martin Bushart to accompany him to India, and hoped, through this man’s knowledge of the native tongue, to elicit all that was to be known.

The government of British India became interested in Dillon’s discovery, and resolved to send him in command of a ship to search for further information. At the end of 1826 he sailed in the Research, and in September of the following year came within sight of the high-peaked island Tucopia.

The enquiries made on this voyage fully confirmed and completed the story, and left no room for doubt that the ships of La Perouse had been wrecked and his whole company massacred or drowned on or near Vanikoro. Many natives still living remembered the arrival of the French. Some of them related that they thought those who came on the big ships to be not men but spirits. Dillon’s officers were able to purchase from the islands such relics as an old sword-blade, a rusted razor, a silver sauceboat with fleur-de-lis upon it, a brass mortar, a few small bells, a silver sword-handle bearing a cypher—apparently a ‘P’ with a crown—part of a blacksmith’s vice, the crown of a small anchor, and many other articles.

An examination of natives brought out a few further details, as for example, a description of the chief of the strangers, ‘who used always to be looking at the stars and the sun and beckoning to them’, which is how a native would be likely to regard a man making astronomical observations.

Dillon, in short, had solved the forty years’ mystery. The Pacific had revealed her long-held secret. It happened that a new French expedition in the second Astrolabe, under the command of Jules Dumont d’Urville, was in the southern hemisphere at this time.

While he lay at Hobart on his way to New Zealand, the captain heard of Dillon’s discoveries, and, at once changing his plans, sailed for the Santa Cruz Islands. He arrived there in February 1828, and made some valuable finds to supplement those of the English captain.

At the bottom of the sea, in perfectly clear water, he saw lying, encrusted with coral, some remains of anchors, chains, guns, bullets and other objects which had clearly belonged to the ships of La Perouse. One of his artists made a drawing of them on the spot. They were recovered and, together with Dillon’s collection, are now exhibited in a pyramid at the Marine Museum at the Louvre in Paris.

La Perouse was a ‘son’ of James Cook. He followed Cook’s guidance in the management of his ships, paying particular attention to the diet of his crews. He did not succeed in keeping scurvy at bay altogether, but when the disease made its appearance he met it promptly by securing fresh vegetable food for the sufferers, and was so far successful that when he arrived in Botany Bay his whole company was in good health.

The published story of Cook’s first South Sea Voyage, as is well known, was not his own. His journal was handed over to Dr Hawkesworth, a gentleman who tried to model his literary style on that of Dr Johnson, and evolved a pompous, big-drum product in consequence. Hawkesworth garnished the manly, straightforward navigator’s simple and direct English with embellishments of his own. Cook himself was annoyed by the decorating of his story, and resented the treatment strongly. La Perouse knew this, and was very anxious that nobody in France should Hawkesworthify him.

He did not object to being carefully edited, but he did not want to be decorated and he therefore wrote the following letter:

If my journal be published before my return, let the editing of it by no means be entrusted to a man of letters; for either he will sacrifice to the turn of a phrase the proper terms which the seaman and man of learning would prefer, but which to him will appear harsh and barbarous; or, rejecting all the nautical and astronomical details, and endeavouring to make a pleasing romance, he will for want of the knowledge his education has not allowed him to acquire, commit mistakes which may prove fatal to those who shall follow me. But choose an editor versed in the mathematical sciences, who is capable of calculating and comparing my data with those of other investigators, of rectifying errors which may have escaped me, and of guarding himself against the commission of others. Such an editor will preserve the substance of the work; will omit nothing that is essential; will give technical details the harsh and rude, but concise style of a seaman; and will well perform his task in supplying my place and publishing the work as I would have done it myself.

There had been early French navigators to the South Seas before La Perouse. There was the elder Bougainville, the discoverer of the Navigator Islands; there was Marion Dufresne, who was killed and eaten by Maoris in 1772; there was Surville, to mention only three. La Perouse knew of them, and mentioned them. But he belonged to the school of Cook, and that is an excellent reason why English and especially Australian people should have an especial regard for him.

‘He was,’ said Barthelemy de Lesseps, the writer and diplomat who sailed with him as far as Kamchatka:

an accomplished gentleman, perfectly urbane and full of wit, and possessed of those charming manners which pertained to the eighteenth century. He was always agreeable in his relations with subordinates and officers alike.

The same writer tells us that when Louis XVI gave him the command of the expedition, La Perouse had the reputation of being the ‘ablest seaman in the French navy’.