The voyage of the Boussole and the Astrolabe

Jean-François de La Pérouse · 1785 CE – 1788 CE · Earth

Complete the Pacific chart left unfinished by Cook, and survey its coasts for trade and science.

Historical context

Louis XVI, an amateur geographer, planned this voyage as France’s scientific answer to Cook and helped draft the instructions himself. Every coast was to be charted, every people described and every specimen preserved — and almost all of it was lost with the ships, except what was sent home overland from Kamchatka and by ship from Botany Bay.

The voyage, step by step

1. Two ships out of Brest

   1 August 1785

   On 1 August 1785 the Boussole and the Astrolabe sail with astronomers, botanists, gardeners and a draughtsman aboard.

2. Port des Français

   July 1786

   In July 1786 the ships enter a spectacular Alaskan fjord, and twenty-one men drown in the tide race at its mouth.

3. The missions of Monterey

   September 1786

   In September 1786 the expedition is received by the Spanish at Monterey, the first foreign ships allowed into Alta California.

4. A map drawn in the sand

   1787 CE

   Feeling his way up the Gulf of Tartary, La Pérouse asks the Ainu and Nivkh of the coast what lies to the north.

5. Through the strait

   August 1787

   In August 1787 the ships pass between Sakhalin and Hokkaido into the Sea of Okhotsk, through the strait that now bears his name.

6. The massacre at Tutuila

   11 December 1787

   On 11 December 1787 a watering party is attacked on a Samoan beach; twelve men die, including Fleuriot de Langle of the Astrolabe.

7. Six days after the First Fleet

   26 January 1788

   On 26 January 1788 the two French ships sail into Botany Bay just as the British convict fleet is moving to Port Jackson.

8. The reefs of Vanikoro

   1788 CE

   Both ships are driven onto the reef of a small Solomon island in a cyclone; the survivors build a boat and disappear.

Outcome

Three years of surveys from Alaska to Sakhalin, then the loss of both ships on the reefs of Vanikoro.

Jean-François de La Pérouse

French naval officer sent by Louis XVI to complete the map of the Pacific, and lost with both his ships on the reefs of Vanikoro.

Read on Wikipedia

Sources

• Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse — Wikipedia
• Where Fate Beckons: The Life of Jean-François de la PérouseJohn Dunmore · University of Alaska Press · 2007

Continue exploring

• The open-boat voyage to TimorWilliam Bligh · 1789 CE
• Survey of the Pacific NorthwestGeorge Vancouver · 1791 CE – 1795 CE
• Second voyageJames Cook · 1772 CE – 1775 CE
• First Pacific voyageJames Cook · 1768 CE – 1771 CE