Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse

Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse ; variant spelling of his name comte "de La Pérouse" (23 August 1741- 1788?) was a French Naval officer and explorer whose expedition vanished in Oceania. 

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. 

Louis XVI and his court had been stimulated by a proposal from the Dutch-born merchant adventure 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 Frenc 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, established 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 sotreships 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 Marc 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

One of the men who applied for the voyage was a 16-year-old Corsican named Napoleon Bonaparte, a second lieutenant from Paris's 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 watches 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, 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 Francais by Lapérouse, but now known as Lituya Bay. The men visited with the Tlingit tribe. (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 10-30 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 disputed. He stopped at the Presidio of San Francisco long enough to create an outline map of the Bay Area, 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 Perouse. He arrived in Monterey Bay and at the Presidio of Monterey on 14 September 1786. He examined the Spanish settlements, ranchos, and missions. He made critical notes on the missionary treatment of the California indigenous peoples with the Indian Reductions at the Franciscan run missions. 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 Hokkaido 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 west through La Perouse Strait, between Oku-Yeso Island (Sakhalin) and (Hokkaido), 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 the Russian and Kamchatkans. In letters received from Paris, Lapérouse was ordered to investigate the settlement the British were establishing in New South Wales, Australia. Barthelemy de Lesseps, the French vice consul at Kronstadt, 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 across Siberia and Russia. 

South Pacific

Lapérouse next stopped in the Navigator Islands (Samoa), on 6 December 1787. Just before he left, the Samoans attacked a group of his men, killing twelve, among whom were Lamanon and de Langle, commander of L'Astrolabe. Twenty men were wounded. The expedition drifted to Tonga, for resupply and help, and later recognized the ile Plistard and Norfolk Island. 

Australia 

The expedition continued to Australia, arriving off Botany Bay on 24 January 1788, just as Captain Arthur Phillip was attempting to move the colony from there to Sydney Cove in Port Jackson. The First Fleet was unable to leave until 26 January because of a tremendous gale, which also prevented Lapérouse's ships from entering Botany Bay. 

The British received him courteously, and each captain, through their officers, offered the other assistance and needed supplies. Lapérouse spent six weeks in the colony and this was his last recorded landfall. The French established an observatory, held Catholic masses, made geological observations, and established a garden. Their chaplain from L'Astrolabe was buried there and is celebrated annually on the anniversary of his death. Although Phillip and Lapérouse did not meet, there were 11 visits recorded between the French and the English. Over the past 200 years, commanders from the French Navy have regularly paid their respects at^[각주:1] the Lapérouse Monument. Lapérouse Day, Bastille Day and the foundation of the Lapérouse Monument by Hyacinthe de Bougainville are celebrated every year. 

Lapérouse took the opportunity to send his journals, some charts and also some letters back to Europe with a British naval ship from the First Fleet - Alexander. He also obtained wood and fresh water and, on 10 March, left for New Caledonia, Santa Cruz, the Solomons, the Louisiades, and the western and southern coasts of Australia. 

Lapérouse wrote that he expected to be back in France by June 1789. The documents that he dispatched with Alexander from the in-progress expedition were brought to Paris, where they were published in 1797 under the title Voyage de La Perouse. However, neither he nor any of his men were seen again. 

The Saga^[각주:2]

Both ships had been wrecked on Vanikoro's reefs, La Boussole first. L'Astrolabe was unloaded and taken apart. A group of men, probably the survivors of La Boussole, was massacred by the local inhabitants. According to the islanders, some surviving sailors built a two-masted craft from the wreckage of L'Astrolabe 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 Dillion arrived. 

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. 

In November 1790, Captain Edward Edwards - in command of HMS Pandora - had sailed from England with orders to comb the Pacific for^[각주:3] the mutineers of HMS Bounty. In March of the following year, Pandora arrived at Tahiti and picked up 14 Bounty men who had stayed on that island. Although some of the 14 had not joined the mutiny, all were imprisoned and shackled in cramped "cage" built on the deck, which the men grimly nicknamed "Pandora's Box". Pandora then left Tahiti in search of Bounty 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, smoke signals were observed rising from the island. Edwards, single-mined in his search for Bounty 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 after La Boussole and L'Astrolabe had foundered^[각주:4]. 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.

1. pay one's respect (to) ; …에 경의를 표하다, …를 존중하다. [본문으로]
2. saga ; 3. 일련의 사건[모험] (또는 그에 대한 보도) [본문으로]
3. comb ; 2. ~ (through) sth (for sb/sth) 샅샅이[이 잡듯이] 찾다[뒤지다] [본문으로]
4. founder ; [~ (on sth)], (격식) 2. (배가) 침몰하다 [본문으로]