The great navigator Jean Francois La Perouse. La Perouse, Jean Francois

22.09.2019

Everything you need for the exam in social studies

Comparative characteristics of -C3 and -C4 plants

Jean Francois La Perouse

Jean François de Galo Comte de La Pérouse (1741–1788), French navigator. He led a round-the-world expedition and discovered a strait in the Far East named after him.

In 1785, on the initiative and under the auspices of the French government, a round-the-world sea expedition was organized with the goal of exploring and, if possible, capturing new lands in the Pacific Ocean to replace lost possessions in India and North America. The expedition included two warships - the frigates Bussol and Astrolabe. The crew consisted of 223 people - sailors and officers. Several cadets from the Paris Military School were enrolled in officer positions. In addition, the expedition included a group of scientists of various specialties - astronomer, geographer, doctor, botanist. As always on such expeditions, there were two artists on board - a painter and a cartographer. Even the names of the frigates, denoting the measuring instruments indispensable on board the ship, should have spoken about the scientific component of the expedition.

This was the first French expedition around the world, and King Louis XVI appointed an experienced military sailor, captain of the first rank Jean Francois Comte de La Perouse, as commander. Of course, this appointment was dictated not by La Perouse’s aristocratic origins and his high education, but solely by his qualities as a navigator and military merits in the war with England, when Captain La Perouse distinguished himself in several naval battles.

Leading the entire expedition, La Perouse was at the same time the commander of the Bussoli, and on his recommendation, Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle, La Perouse’s comrade and friend, was appointed commander of the Astrolabe. Leaving the shores of France (port of Brest) on August 1, 1785, the ships, after more than three months of sailing across the Atlantic, approached the shores of Brazil, from where they proceeded to Cape Horn. These places have long gained a terrible reputation for their storms. But La Perouse, without entering the straits of Tierra del Fuego, sailed ships around Cape Horn - for the first time in the history of navigation without the loss of “manpower and equipment.”

Already in February 1786, the Bussol and the Astrolabe entered the Pacific Ocean. The travelers visited the Chilean port of Concepcion, after a short stop there they headed to Easter Island. After a short stay there and viewing the giant Maui statues, the expedition moved on. La Perouse expected to discover unknown lands along the way, but up to the Hawaiian Islands the Pacific Ocean did not give the French any discoveries. Having reached the Hawaiian archipelago, the sailors landed on the island of Maui. Here, boats of local residents approached the sides of the frigates. The natives offered the sailors their wealth - pigs, bananas, sweet potatoes and sweet potatoes - in exchange for knives and simple iron bars and rods.

Sailing from the Hawaiian Islands, La Perouse sent the frigates north. In the twentieth of June, the expedition reached the northern shores of Alaska and began surveying from Ice Bay. They marked Mount St. Elias on the maps above the Gulf of Alaska, discovered by Vitus Bering, and assigned his name to the river discovered during the survey of the coast. In the ocean waters off the coast of North America, the expedition suffered its first losses: a tidal wave capsized two boats sent to the shore, and all the sailors in them - 21 people - died. The monument on Cenotaph Island still reminds people of the maritime drama.

From these places, La Perouse's ships sailed along the coast in the direction opposite to Cook's movement in 1778, that is, to the southeast, to Monterey Bay. After walking around, he concluded that in the fiftieth latitude near the mainland there is an archipelago (in fact there are two of them, now they bear the names of Alexander and K°role Charlotte). Next, La Perouse headed to the Philippine Islands, and in the spring of 1787 he began to explore the shores of East Asia in the temperate zone, gradually moving north. The French mapped the coasts of the East China and Sea of Japan, rose north almost to latitude 40, and on July 3 moved northeast. On the morning of July 7, from the ship we saw mountainous land stretched along the meridian. Confident that the coast of Hokkaido was in front of them, the French sailors sailed north in thick fog almost at random, and five days later they dropped anchor in a convenient bay. Here, thanks to the help of local residents and the map they drew, it turned out that the expedition was located on the island of Sakhalin, separated by straits from the mainland and the island of Yesso (Hokkaido).

At the entrance to the narrow strait (now the Nevelskoy Strait), connecting the Amur Estuary with the Tatar Strait (the name was given by La Perouse), the captain turned back - having decided that it was a bay, he made the erroneous conclusion that Sakhalin is a peninsula connected to the mainland by a sandy isthmus. The ships, having passed the strait between the islands of Sakhalin and Hokkaido (La Perouse Strait), left the Sea of Japan into the Pacific Ocean. Leaving the giant arc of the Kuril Islands on the left, La Perouse began to rise to high latitudes, and on September 6, 1787, the frigates Bussol and Astrolabe arrived at the port of Peter and Paul.

The voyage from France to Kamchatka lasted two years. The small garrison of the port under the command of Ensign Khabarov hospitably greeted the sailors. A few days later, the commandant of the Okhotsk Territory, Kozlov-Ugrenin, arrived from Verkhnekamchatsk to Petropavlovsk. At the request of the French, the owners of the Russian port sent seven heads of cattle and various foodstuffs to the ships.

In a letter to the Siberian Governor-General, La Perouse warmly thanked the residents of Petropavlovsk for their hospitality. “I could not have received a warmer welcome in my own country, with my best friends, than here in Kamchatka,” he then wrote to the French ambassador in St. Petersburg. The French government highly appreciated the assistance to the sailors and a year later awarded ensign Khabarov the Louis XVI medal.

The stay of La Perouse's frigates in Petropavlovsk lasted more than three weeks. During this time, French sailors were able to fully prepare their ships for the upcoming long voyage. Before the departure of the Bussoli and the Astrolabe from Petropavlovsk, La Perouse left his assistant, Vice-Consul Jean Baptiste Lessens, in the care of the port owners, who was to go overland through St. Petersburg to France with the expedition's mail. This man turned out to be the only participant in the voyage who was destined to return to his homeland...

On September 30, 1787, La Perouse's frigates left Avacha Bay and headed for Australia. First, La Perouse moved to Oceania, to the islands of the eastern group of Samoa. Here, for unknown reasons, on December 11, a bloody skirmish with the natives took place, during which 11 Samoans and 2 French were killed, including the captain of the Astrolabe, Paul Antoine de Langle. The ships then moved west. On December 17, the island of Savaii, the largest in the Samoan archipelago, was discovered. From there La Perouse headed towards Australia and at the end of January 1788 anchored in Botany Bay.

There the French met with the English flotilla, which delivered the first batch of exiled convicts to Eastern Australia. This is how the future population of Australia was formed, now one of the richest and most prosperous countries in the world. The head of the flotilla, Arthur Philip, the first governor of the colony of New South Wales, founded a village of the same name near Port Jackson Bay, which gave rise to the development of the future Sydney. In February 1788, La Perouse sent a message from there to France, where, among other things, he announced his intention to visit the islands of Melanesia, including Santa Cruz, go around New Holland and go to the island of Ile-de-France (Mauritius). There was no further news about the expedition...

Leaving Port Jackson, La Perouse's expedition went missing. Forty years later, researcher J.S. Dumont-D'Urville suggested, and in 1959, the famous volcanologist Garun Taziev confirmed the fact of the death of ships in the area of \u200b\u200bthe island of Vanikoro (Veracruz archipelago).

In honor of the stay of the La Perouse expedition, a monument was erected in Petropavlovsk. The strait between Sakhalin and Hokkaido, reefs near Vilyuchinskaya Bay and other geographical features are named after the famous French navigator.

| |

Historians called the 18th century differently: “The Age of Courtoisie”; "A century of great reforms and transformations"; “The Age of Philosophical Thought”, etc. It can be called, and rightly so, the “Century of Around the World.” Indeed, at the end of the 18th century the time had come for competitions in round-the-world travel. After the trips around the globe made by Magellan and Elcano, the palm initially belonged to the British, however, after James Cook’s “around the world”, the French government decided to continue research and, having developed an extremely extensive plan, sent an expedition led by captain of the first rank La Perouse, which was ordered to explore almost the entire Pacific Ocean.

Jean François Golup, Comte de La Pérouse, was born in 1741. After graduating from the Naval Academy, he participated in naval battles with the British during the Seven Years' War. When he led the expedition entrusted to him in 1785, he was already 44 years old and had considerable experience of sailing in the open ocean.

La Perouse's expedition was to last four years and end in France in the summer of 1789. The last time Aaperouse's ships were seen was when they left Australia and headed northeast; none of the more than 200 people aboard the two ships were ever found.

Most of the life of Count Jean-François de Galot de La Perouse was devoted not to scientific expeditions, but to the fight against the British. The future navigator was born in 1741 in southwestern France, in the town of Albi. When the Seven Years' War began, the young man was fourteen, and he went to Brest to enter the School of Naval Guards. There he studied mathematics, astronomy and navigation for seven years, alternating academic studies with combat missions on near and far seas. Over the course of a decade and a half, La Perouse participated in several military campaigns, was wounded, was in English captivity, crossed the Atlantic Ocean more than once, and even reached the East Indies, from where he returned with the rank of lieutenant commander.

Rumors about the talented naval commander reached Louis XVI himself. The king was struck by the humanity that La Perouse showed towards the enemy. In 1782, when tasked with destroying British fur trading posts in Canada, La Pérouse quickly destroyed the enemy forts but left the sailors' homes untouched. Moreover, he left supplies for the vanquished so that they could survive the approaching winter, and restored freedom to the prisoners and even gave them weapons to protect them from the Indians. Having discovered a secret description of a voyage along North America with maps and plans in the papers of the fort commandant, La Perouse acted like a knight: he returned the documents to the author, taking his word to publish them.

In 1783, with the end of the wars, La Perouse retired and retired to his estate in the south of France. It is unlikely that he thought about new travels, especially around the world. But France, having finally received a respite from the battles, needed to quickly develop trade, and therefore expand the geography of sea expeditions.

The French were inspired by Cook's example: he made three voyages across the Pacific Ocean, gaining fame as a great discoverer. But in 1779, the famous Englishman died, and now the French king set out to equip a round-the-world expedition to discover “all the lands that had escaped the watchful eye of Captain Cook.” By the beginning of 1785, the expedition plan was ready. La Perouse was assigned to lead the risky enterprise.

The royal instructions were clear: La Perouse must win the favor of the leaders of distant tribes with kindness and gifts (at the same time finding out what goods they would like and what they could offer in return). Taking into account the experience of communicating with the natives of previous European expeditions, simple but practical things were offered for gifts and exchange: 600 mirrors, 2600 hair combs, 5000 sewing needles, various kinds of metal tools, scarlet cloth and medals with the minted profile of Louis XVI.

The real struggle unfolded for the right to be one of the two hundred participants in the expedition. The most desperate heads of France tried to get into its composition. It is enough to mention 16-year-old Bonaparte, a graduate of the Paris Military School. But the young man failed the astronomy exam and was removed from the list of sailors. Subsequently, as is known, it found application on land.

Recent enemies, the British, who had not forgotten the nobility of La Perouse on the battlefield, also agreed to help the expedition. The Frenchman was allowed to familiarize himself with the maps and reports of Captain Cook, and the British Royal Scientific Society gave him two “magnetic needles” - compasses that circumnavigated the world with Cook. La Perouse, by his own admission, treated these gifts “with almost religious reverence for the memory of the great and incomparable navigator.”

Supplies for a four-year voyage were loaded on board the two frigates "Boussol" and "Astrolabe", and on the morning of August 1, 1785, amid the shouts of the crowd and the thunder of fireworks, the ships departed from the pier of the French port of Brest. “I have the honor to report that the flotilla sailed today at four o’clock in the morning with a northwest wind,” Admiral de La Perouse reported to his king. “Two sloops have been ordered to accompany the ships until they put to sea.” Thus, today the circumnavigation of the world began.” The ships had to cross the Atlantic and reach the Great Southern Sea, as the Pacific Ocean was then called.

The captain of the Bussoli was La Perouse himself, the Astrolabe was led by his close friend and comrade in arms, Captain Fleuriot de Langle. Having safely passed the Atlantic Ocean, the sailing ships passed Cape Horn, where they were met by a herd of whales, “releasing fountains in chorus,” and after stopping in the Chilean port of Valparaiso, they reached Easter Island, discovered in 1722 by the Dutch. Crowding along the side, the sailors looked with curiosity at the stone statues covering the yellow slopes of the island. “These are not idols, but rather grave monuments,” wrote one of the expedition members. The flotilla stood at Easter Island for only twenty-four hours, but still the natives managed to profit from some of the sailors’ property. Despite numerous petty thefts and even the theft of an anchor from one of the ships, La Perouse forbade the crew to use firearms against the aborigines. On the contrary, the expedition's gardener was ordered to distribute plant seeds to the local residents, as well as goats and poultry. And now, almost two hundred years later, the islanders remember La Perouse with gratitude: the bay where the Boussol and the Astrolabe were moored was named after him.

And again crossing the ocean - this time to the island of Maui in the Hawaiian archipelago. Remembering that Captain Cook had died here seven years earlier, La Perouse hastened to play it safe and announced to the natives that he, his crew and his ships were “taboo.”

After a short rest in Hawaii, La Perouse directed his ships to the coast of Alaska. There, in a vast unexplored bay, the expedition encountered its first big disaster. Deciding to hunt sea life, the sailors launched two boats, but the wave, “rolling at a speed of three or four miles per hour,” capsized one boat. Twenty-one sailors, including six officers, were killed. Shocked by the incident, La Perouse named the bay where the tragedy took place French Harbor and erected a memorial sign on the shore with the inscription: “Twenty-one brave sailors died at the entrance to the harbor. Whoever you are, shed tears with us."

And yet the voyage continued. In early January 1787, the flotilla approached the territory of Macau off the coast of the South China Sea. Having repaired ships in China and replenished food supplies in the Philippines, La Perouse headed north. The expedition’s path lay past Taiwan and Japan to the shores of Tartary, as the Europeans called the entire unknown territory east of the Ural Mountains. These places especially attracted La Perouse. “We were eager,” he wrote, “to begin exploring the country that had occupied our imagination since sailing from France.”

Geographical maps still keep French names in eastern Russian waters: Terney Bay, Monneron Island, Cape Lamanon and, of course, the La Perouse Strait - along which the expedition rounded Sakhalin and headed to Kamchatka. Here La Perouse left his officer Barthelemy de Lesseps, who spoke Russian, with the task of crossing Siberia and delivering a report on the progress of the expedition to the King of France. For almost a year, the envoy traveled to Paris, carrying secret documents on dog sleds, a cart, and even a camel. Thanks to this mission, he avoided the sad fate that, as we will later see, was destined for La Perouse and his comrades... By the way, de Lesseps subsequently “visited” Russia again in 1812 - as an officer of the Napoleonic army marching on Moscow.. .

On September 7, 1787, the flotilla was greeted with a cannon salute in Petropavlovsk. The reception given to the French sailors in Russia exceeded all their expectations: the travelers were generously provided with provisions, and in honor of their arrival they gave a ball in the hut of the commandant of the fortress. For the embarrassed, unaccustomed to sorority gentlemen, thirteen local ladies were invited to the event.

True, the conversation did not go well at first: except for the commandant, no one in Petropavlovsk knew French. But de Lesseps, who was preparing to leave, spoke in broken Russian: “I was heading to St. Petersburg. I know your queen." Toasts immediately followed to Catherine, Louis, Neptune and all the Kamchatka ladies. The wine flowed like a river, and the need for translators disappeared...

The frigates left the coast of Russia for the southern hemisphere and, having once again crossed the Pacific Ocean, approached the Samoan archipelago to stand at the island of Tutuila. This brief stay at first seemed heavenly to La Perouse. The islanders, among whom there were many beautiful women, behaved very friendly, and the products of the local artisans delighted the guests. Just before sailing, the captain of the Astrolabe, Fleuriot de Langle, once again went ashore with several sailors to distribute small gifts to the natives.

This was his fatal mistake. There weren't enough gifts for everyone, and a fight broke out. Stones were thrown at the aliens. Remembering the noble principles of La Perouse, de Langle forbade opening fire and began to retreat to the boats, when he suddenly staggered and fell into the water. One of the stones hit him right in the head. Enraged by such treachery, the sailors prepared to shoot, but, as luck would have it, their guns got wet. Twelve members of the expedition, including de Langle, died at the hands of the natives that day. Thus, in just two and a half years, the expedition lost thirty-three people.

Having survived this tragedy, the Compass and Astrolabe headed for the east coast of Australia. At the end of January 1788, the French entered Botany Bay, where they met a British squadron (in the same year, the British founded the city of Sydney there, the first European settlement in Australia). With her, La Perouse sent letters and reports, informing the king that in the near future he intended to explore the Solomon Islands, Tahiti, New Guinea and the north of Australia. He wrote that he expected to return to his homeland by June 1789.

On March 10, “Bussol” and “Astrolabe” headed northeast. And since then there has been no further news from La Perouse. “He disappeared without a trace in the boundless blue ocean,” the Scotsman Thomas Carlyle wrote about the French navigator, “and only his sad, mysterious shadow does not leave our minds and hearts.”

On July 14, 1789, crowds of rebel Parisians took the Bastille. This was the beginning of a revolution that shook the country until the end of the century. However, even in these troubled times, France did not forget about the flotilla that disappeared in the ocean. They say that when Louis XVI was being taken to the place of execution, he turned to the executioner and asked: “Is there any news from La Perouse?”

In 1791, the French National Assembly recognized "the necessity of rescuing La Perouse and his sailors." Two warships under the command of Rear Admiral Bruno d'Entrecasteaux were sent to search for the flotilla. Before sailing, he received valuable news: the English captain George Owen returned from India, who had heard that the wreckage of a French ship had been found north of New Guinea, in the Admiralty archipelago.

And D'Entrecasteaux decided to head straight there. While anchored at the Cape of Good Hope, he received encouraging news: another English navigator, Captain Hunter, reported that on one of the Admiralty islands he saw people in the uniform of French sailors. They gave signals, but strong seas prevented the British from approaching the shore. (One of the participants in this voyage later assured that the signals were given to them by the natives, who had pulled on red French uniforms. In his opinion, they were simply trying to lure the sailing ship onto the reefs.) D’Entrecasteaux walked around many of the islands of the archipelago, but found nothing.

In May 1793, his ships approached the island of Vanikoro from the Santa Cruz group northeast of Australia. The crew noticed columns of smoke over the hills of this island. Someone was clearly signaling to the sailors. D'Entrecasteaux was convinced that he had found La Perouse, or at least the remains of the missing expedition. But after his ships nearly hit the reefs, he was forced to leave without sending a search party ashore.

And two months later, d’Entrecasteaux’s ships were captured by the Dutch - by that time revolutionary France was already at war with almost all of Europe. There was no one left to look for La Perouse.

His expedition was forgotten until, in May 1826, the ship of the Irishman Dillon made a stop on the island of Tikopia from the Santa Cruz group. He noticed among the natives glass beads and objects clearly of European origin: silver forks and spoons, knives, tea cups, and most importantly, a sword handle with the letters JFGP. Dillon couldn't believe his eyes. These initials could only mean one thing: Jean Francois Galaup de La Perouse!

The things, as Captain Dillon found out, were exchanged by the natives from the inhabitants of Vanikoro, an island located two days away by sail. And they talked about two large boats that once ran aground. Some said that those who came on boats drowned, others said that they were killed. Dillon wanted to go to Vanikoro, but his ship developed a leak and had to go to Java for repairs.

Only a year later he reached Vanikoro. The old native told him that many, many moons ago there was a terrible storm, and the waves rose higher than the palm trees. Two boats with “spirits” arrived at them, and one of them crashed on the reef. “Our ancestors wanted to see the spirits up close, but they sent fireballs at them, bringing death. Then the gods gave a blessing to the arrows, and the ancestors were able to kill all the spirits from the boat. There were many dead spirits. They were thrown out by the waves, and we took off their clothes and long iron knives.”

Another ship, according to the stories of the natives, washed up on a sandbank. Its masts stuck straight out of the water, and on them were many half-dead spirits tied with ropes. These were non-militant spirits. Having gone ashore, they handed out gifts. And their leader with a long nose spoke to the moon through a stick. Other spirits, standing on one leg, guarded the camp day and night, where behind wooden fences their friends were building a smaller boat from the wreckage of a large boat. All the “one-legged” creatures were constantly shaking iron sticks. And five moons later the spirits sailed away on a small boat.

Dillon unraveled something in this legend: “long noses” were apparently cocked hats, “a stick for talking to the moon” was a telescope, “one-legged legs with iron sticks” were sentries standing motionless with guns. But the most amazing thing is that, according to the natives, two of the spirits - the “leader” and his “servant” - remained on the island and were alive a few years ago! The natives even remembered the name of the “leader” - “Pilo”. "La Perouse" reinterpreted in a native way? And soon, not far from the shore in shallow water, Dillon’s people discovered bronze cannons and a ship’s bell with the inscription: “Bazin cast me. Brest 1785".

Having collected the finds, Dillon went to Paris, where he was received by King Charles X. The items were identified by one of the members of the La Perouse expedition - the same de Lesseps who in 1787 went ashore on Kamchatka and crossed Siberia.

In 1959, French scuba divers began searching for the remains of La Perouse's flotilla on Vanikoro. From the bottom of the lagoon they lifted fragments of the side plating. Then, exploding dynamite underwater, they discovered cannons and cannonballs. And the main material evidence is a silver ruble with the image of Peter I, minted in 1724. Who could such a coin belong to, if not a member of the expedition that reached the shores of Siberia? What really happened to the French navigator and his companions? Let's try to reconstruct the possible course of events.

On a stormy night in 1788, one of La Perouse’s ships, making its way to a seemingly safe harbor, ran into a coral reef. The ship sank, and some of the sailors were killed by islanders who arrived in pirogues. The second frigate hurried to help the first and also ran into the reef. However, the holes turned out to be not too large: the sailboat managed to go over the reef and land on the sandbank - the captain had no other choice. The surviving sailors were not at a loss. They presented the natives with gifts, erected a temporary fort and began to build a small sailing vessel from the remains of the ship. “After five moons” they sailed away, leaving two members of the crew on the island - the “leader” and his “servant”.

Where could desperate sailors go? Without a doubt, their path lay to the nearest European colony on the island of Timor - five thousand kilometers from Vanikoro. The sailors had to go around New Guinea from the north and pass through many of the Moluccas. But fate again turned out to be cruel to travelers. Their ship was wrecked - now off the coast of New Guinea, in the Admiralty archipelago. It was there that Captain Hunter saw people in French uniforms. But who - the sailors of La Perouse or the Papuans who dressed in their clothes?

According to some reports, a certain captain of the East India Company discovered many European objects on the same islands, including a sword with a lily engraved on the hilt. Before the French Revolution, during the time of La Perouse, lilies were depicted on the swords of all French officers.

But what happened to La Perouse himself after the crash on Vanikoro? As is known, only the crew of the second ship managed to escape, whose captain managed to throw the ship onto a sandbank. There is a strong opinion in maritime literature that the Boussol, under the command of La Perouse, was the first to enter the treacherous strait and ran into a reef. However, there is no reliable evidence of this. It is impossible to determine which of the two ships they belonged to from the anchors and cannons raised from the bottom.

The natives said that the survivors behaved friendly: the “spirits” handed out gifts, and the guards, although they shook their guns on the walls of the fort, did not open fire. This is so similar to La Perouse, one of the most noble naval commanders of the 18th century. Wasn’t he the “leader” who remained on the island with his servant? And doesn’t the surviving hilt of La Perouse’s sword indicate that the commander did not die among the reefs and did not leave the island with the sailors on a homemade sloop? According to the islanders, the chief and his servant died shortly before the arrival of Captain Dillon - around 1824. By this time La Perouse might have been just over 80 years old.

In all nautical reference books, the year of La Perouse’s death is listed as 1788, the year the expedition disappeared. We have every reason to take a fresh look at the fate of the great captain and assume that this date should be pushed back 30 years. But will we ever know why La Perouse remained among the Polynesians?

Found an error in the text? Highlight the misspelled word and press Ctrl + Enter.

LAPEROUSE, JEAN FRANCOIS(La Pérouse, Comte de) (1741–1788), French navigator. Born on August 23, 1741 in the town of Lego near Albi. His father, Victor Joseph de Galo, belonged to an ancient Albigensian family that received the nobility in 1558. In 1750–1756 he studied at the Jesuit College of Albi (now the College of La Perouse), after which he chose a naval career. To emphasize his noble origin, he added the name de La Perouse to his surname (that was the name of the family farm). In November 1756 he entered the School of Naval Guards in Brest, which trained officers for the navy. During the Seven Years' War he served from March 1757 on combat and transport ships; participated in operations against the British in Canada and in patrolling the coast of Brittany. During the battle of the French and English fleets in the Gulf of Quiberon on November 20, 1759, he was wounded and captured, but released on parole. In between voyages he continued his studies at the School of Naval Guards. Upon completion, on October 1, 1764, he received the junior officer rank of sublieutenant. He served on military transport ships delivering strategic materials and equipment. In September 1766, he was first appointed captain of the transport ship “Adur”; in November of the same year he began to command the transport “Dorothea” (until May 1768).

In the summer of 1770 he was transferred to the combat frigate Belle Poule. In May-October 1771, he sailed on board to the West Indies (on the island of Haiti). In April 1772 - December 1776 he served in the East Indies under the command of the governor of Ile-de-France (modern Mauritius). During this period he commanded the warship Sena; on behalf of the governor, he carried out two expeditions to India in order to strengthen French influence: in May 1773 - March 1774 on its southeastern coast, and in August 1774 - May 1775 on its western coast; during the latter, he repelled the attack of the fleet of the Sultan of Maharashtra and prevented the ruler of Malabar from capturing the French fortress of Mahe. In September 1776 he received command of the ship “Iphigenia” and participated in an expedition to Madagascar to resolve conflicts among the inhabitants of the colony founded in 1774 by M.-A.-A. Beniovsky in the Gulf of Antongil.

Upon returning to France in May 1777, he became a lieutenant and holder of the Order of St. Louis. In February-May 1778 he commanded the corvette Seren; escorted transport ships and patrolled the coast near Ouessant Island at the western tip of Brittany. In 1778, after France entered the war against England (American War of Independence), he was appointed captain of the corvette Amazon; Together with a detachment of French ships, he made a successful raid around England. In May-July 1779 he participated in the operations of the French fleet in the West Indies, and in August-September of the same year in military operations off the coast of North America; in September he captured the English frigate Ariel. In 1780 he took part in the development of the operation to transfer the corps of J.-B. Rochambeau across the Atlantic and in its implementation (May-July 1780). From December 1780, commanding the frigate Astraea, he patrolled the coast of Massachusetts and at the mouth of the river. St. Lawrence; On July 21, 1781, with the support of the frigate Hermione, he defeated a British convoy off Cape Breton Island; received the rank of captain 1st rank. In January-February 1782 he took part in the successful attack of the French fleet on the islands of St. Christopher, Nevis and Montserrat. In May 1782 he led a naval expedition to Hudson Bay; in August he captured and destroyed Fort Prince of Wales (at the mouth of the Churchill River) and Fort York (at the mouth of the Nelson River), but an epidemic that broke out among the crew forced him to return to Europe.

After the end of the war, he proposed to the government a plan for a three-year scientific expedition to the Pacific Ocean to discover and describe new lands and clarify data on those already discovered, intending to surpass the achievements of J. Cook. Louis XVI agreed and appointed him leader of the expedition (beginning 1785). L.-A. took part in the preparation of the voyage. de Bouganville, the first Frenchman to travel around the world, naturalist J.L. Buffon, chemist A. Lavoisier.

On August 1, 1785, an expedition consisting of two ships “Boussol” and “Astrolabe” (commander P.A.M. Fleuriot de Langle) sailed from Brest; on board there was a group of scientists (astronomers, geologists, mineralogists, botanists, cartographers), as well as artists. Having entered Madeira Island and the Canary Islands (mid-August), the ships crossed the equator (September 29) and reached St. Island in early November. Catarina off the southern coast of Brazil. Having made an unsuccessful attempt to find the hypothetical “Big Island” in the South Atlantic, the expedition approached the shores of Patagonia in mid-January 1786, and in early February rounded Cape Horn and ended up in the Pacific Ocean. Having made a stop in Talkahuan (Chile), she left the shores of South America on March 19 and reached Easter Island in April. In May-June, the expedition visited the Hawaiian Islands, discovered by J. Cook, and then headed north in search of the northwest passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic. On June 23, the ships approached the southeastern coast of Alaska in the area of Mount St. Elias. However, La Perouse abandoned the search for a northwestern route and headed southeast. After exploring the western coast of Canada, he sailed to Monterey Bay (September), and then crossed the Pacific Ocean and on January 3, 1787 dropped anchor in Macau (South China). In February-April 1787, the expedition visited the Philippine Islands and Formosa Island (modern Taiwan) and in early May moved north. On May 21, she reached Jeju Island off the southern coast of Korea, on May 25, having passed the Korea Strait (through the Western Passage), she entered the Sea of Japan, crossed it and on June 6 saw the northern coast of the main Japanese island of Honshu. On June 11, the ships approached the Tatar coast (modern Primorye) near Cape Ostovnoy. Having sailed along it to the north, La Perouse turned east at the beginning of July and soon reached the land that the aborigines called Tapshoka; gave her the name Segalien, which later became Sakhalin. Having learned from local residents that Sakhalin is an island separated from the mainland and Japan by straits, he took the ships north: he found out that the Gulf of Tatar is actually a strait, but did not dare to go into the Sea of Okhotsk through its narrowest northern part and turned south . Approaching the southwestern tip of Sakhalin on August 11 (he called it Cape Krillon; modern Cape Krilon), on August 12 he passed the strait between it and the island. Hokkaido (modern La Perouse Strait) and ended up in the Sea of Okhotsk. At the end of August, he explored the Kuril Islands in search of a passage to the Pacific Ocean, and then headed for Kamchatka. On September 7 he dropped anchor off Petropavlovsk and was warmly received by the local Russian authorities; During his stay, he received news from Paris that he had been promoted to commodore and ordered to go to Australia, where the British government had sent a flotilla with the aim of colonizing it. I decided to go to Australia through the central part of the Pacific Ocean, hoping to discover hitherto unknown islands. Finding nothing, he crossed the equator on November 21 and reached the Samoa Islands on December 6; As a result of a collision with the aborigines on Tutuila Island, he lost part of the crew, including de Langle. At the end of December 1787 - beginning of January 1788 he visited the islands of Tonga and Fr. Norfolk. On January 23, he approached the Australian coast south of Broken Bay, and on January 26, he dropped anchor in Boteny Bay, where he met English ships. Having built a fort on the northern shore of the bay (now a suburb of Sydney, bearing the name of La Perouse). Deciding to continue the journey, he sent a message to France about his further route (Tonga - New Caledonia - Santa Cruz Islands - New Guinea - Torres Strait - Mauritius), sailed eastward on March 10, 1788 and disappeared.

In September 1791, the French government, concerned about the lack of news about La Perouse, sent an expedition to search for him under the command of A. R. J. Bruny d'Entrecasteaux, whose efforts, however, were unsuccessful (1791–1793). Only in 1827 did the Irish navigator P. Dillon discovered traces of a shipwreck on the island of Vinikoro in the Santa Cruz archipelago; in 1828 his discovery was confirmed by the French traveler J. Dumont d'Urville. In the 1960s, New Zealander R. Discombe, as a result of underwater research, found the remains of dead ships in coastal waters. Most scientists reconstruct the final stage of the journey as follows: after leaving Boteny Bay, La Perouse visited Tonga and New Caledonia and sailed to the Santa Cruz Islands; near Vanikoro Island during a storm his ships crashed on the reefs; part of the Bussoli crew escaped; Faced with hostility from the locals, the French erected a fortified fort, then built a small ship and sailed to an unknown destination, only to perish in the open ocean.

The role of J.F. La Perouse in the exploration of the Pacific Ocean is enormous, it is comparable to the role of J. Cook. Although he discovered few new lands, he significantly enriched the geographical and ethnographic knowledge of Europeans about little-studied lands, primarily the Tatar coast, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, and also proved the inconsistency of ideas about the existence of many hypothetical islands marked on old maps. Unlike a number of his predecessors, he acted as an explorer, and not as a conqueror, knew how to establish contact with the aborigines and never made claims to any territories if they were inhabited.

The name La Perouse is immortalized in many geographical names: it is borne by a mountain and a glacier in the southeastern part of Alaska, a strait between Sakhalin and Hokkaido, a bay on the island of Maui (Hawaii), mountains in Tasmania and New Zealand, a bay in Hudson Bay. There are La Perouse museums in Albi and Sydney, and monuments have been erected to him in his homeland and at the site of his death. Several ships of the French navy were named in his honor.

Ivan Krivushin

Jean François de Galo Comte de La Pérouse (1741–1788), French navigator. He led a round-the-world expedition and discovered a strait in the Far East named after him.

| |

In travel, especially great ones, there is always some mystery. After all, all these trips and voyages “to distant lands” began with riddles - fairy tales, myths and simply mistakes. Moreover, the results of expeditions, generally designed to erase blank spots on maps, were often shrouded in such an aura of mystery that very little is known about them to this day.

One of the most mysterious expeditions in the history of geography is the voyage of La Perouse. It seemed that after Cook’s three grand voyages and numerous discoveries, it was pointless to look for something new in the Pacific Ocean. Nevertheless, in 1784 the French began to prepare their expedition to the Great Ocean. The importance attached to it is evidenced by the fact that such authoritative people as the navigator Bougainville, the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the world, the naturalist Buffon and the chemist Lavoisier were involved in the preparation of the voyage, and its organization was controlled by the Minister of the Navy Marquis de Castries and Louis himself XVI. The naval officer La Perouse was assigned to lead the expedition, who may have initiated it.

Jean François de Galot, Comte de La Pérouse, born in 1741, first studied at a Jesuit college and at the age of 15 entered the naval academy in Brest. Before he could finish it, in 1758 he went to fight the British and took part in many naval battles off the coast of America, was wounded and captured, but managed to escape. He served in Mauritius (then Ile-de-France), sailed to India, and returned from distant travels to France with a young Creole, his future wife. In 1777, La Perouse was promoted to lieutenant, and then again fought against the British - for the independence of the United States. In 1780 he became captain of the 1st rank. It is not surprising that with such a track record, it was he who was entrusted with a complex and responsible task. But which one? The official goals of the expedition were extremely modest: to go through the “places of glory” of James Cook and clarify the discoveries made by the great Briton, try to establish contacts with the natives, and also determine the prospects for whaling in the South Pacific.

At the beginning of August 1785, two frigates with the peaceful academic names “Bussol” and “Astrolabe” left Brest. La Perouse commanded the flagship, and Fleuriot de Langle, an officer well known to La Perouse from battles with the British, was appointed captain of the Astrolabe. The expedition included engineer Paul Monneron, botanist and physician Joseph de La Martiniere, priest and part-time geologist Jean Andre Monge, botanist and physicist Robert de Lamanon, as well as an astronomer, mathematician, and artists. They carried with them scientific instruments and an impressive library. There were a total of 223 people on the two ships. It is interesting that initially the list of participants in the expedition included a young cadet of the Paris Military School, Napoleon Bonaparte. Later, for some reason, this name disappeared from the lists.

At the beginning of November, the ships had already arrived in Brazil. From here they headed not along the coast of South America, but to the central part of the South Atlantic, supposedly in search of a certain “Mainland”. The search did not last long, and in January 1786 the expedition approached the shores of Patagonia, and then, rounding Cape Horn, entered the Pacific Ocean. After a short stop in Chile, La Perouse headed for Easter Island. In May, he arrived in Hawaii, and on June 23, the Compass and Astrolabe reached the shores of North America in the vicinity of Mount St. Elias - the same place where Bering approached America in 1741, i.e., the year of La Perouse’s birth.

Apparently, one of the tasks of La Perouse's expedition was to discover the North-West Route. But he was not looking for him where Cook was, that is, north of America. La Perouse carefully explored the coast south of Alaska, entering every bay - apparently in the hope of discovering the mouth of a navigable river that would lead him to the central regions of the continent, closer to the Mississippi and the Great Lakes. By that time, neither the river nor the lakes belonged to the French, but they hoped to return them (as it would later turn out, not entirely groundlessly). One of these bays, the elongated French Harbor, as La Perouse dubbed it, which seemed so quiet, so cozy, became the grave for 20 sailors. Three boats, setting out in search of a river supposedly flowing into the bay, were suddenly caught by a monstrous current that arose during the tide and thrown onto the rocks. Only one boat miraculously managed to escape from the deadly embrace of the stream. By the way, this bay called Lituya is known not only for high tides, but also for fantastic tsunamis: in 1958, a wave caused by a giant landslide reached 520 m in height!

The French continued sailing along the coast, traded with the Indians, filling their holds with furs, but, apparently, were no longer in the mood for a detailed study of each of the bays jutting deep into the land. In September, they reached the Spanish port of Monterey on the shores of the bay of the same name (a little south of modern San Francisco), and replenished supplies of fresh water and provisions there. Now the expedition's path lay west, across the Pacific Ocean to the shores of Asia.

At the beginning of January 1787, the French reached Macau, a Portuguese possession in southern China, and profitably sold furs here. In the spring, La Perouse visited the Philippines, which belonged to Spain, went to Formosa (now Taiwan) and from there moved north along the Asian coast. At the end of May, the ships passed through the Korea Strait into the Sea of Japan and soon reached the northern coast of the Japanese island of Honshu, and then proceeded through the Tartary Strait to the north. Soon La Perouse reached the land that the locals called Tapshoka, while on Russian maps it was called Sakhalin. Sakhalyan-ulla ("Black River") is the Manchu name for the Amur, which was mistakenly transferred to the island. La Perouse heard that this was an island from its inhabitants and the population of Hokkaido. And yet, he decided to check their claim and led the ships north into the narrowing strait, but, frightened by the shoals, he did not dare to go into the Sea of Okhotsk and turned south. La Perouse left it to others to prove the island position of Sakhalin. In mid-August, the French proceeded to the Sea of Okhotsk through the strait between Sakhalin and Hokkaido (now the La Perouse Strait). Having examined the Kuril Islands, La Perouse headed for Kamchatka.

French ships arrived in Petropavlovsk in early September. Here they received a warm welcome, several weeks of rest and news from France. Until recently, the latter would have seemed impossible: relations between Russia and France under Louis XV were very cool - just remember the wars for the Polish and Austrian succession. Apparently, under Louis XVI the situation changed: the French government knew that La Perouse would certainly arrive in Petropavlovsk, and sent messages there across Russia for him. What news did La Perouse receive? Firstly, a message about the assignment of another military rank to him and congratulations on this. And secondly, an order to go to the shores of Australia, where the English squadron of Arthur Philip was already heading with the order to begin colonizing the continent farthest from Europe. But what was La Perouse's task? Get ahead of the British? Stop them? Monitor the colonization process?

Obviously, the task was quite risky, since La Perouse did not take the materials of the expedition, including travel journals and maps, with him, but sent them to France by land through Siberia, the European part of Russia and Europe. This order was carried out by a young officer, Jean Baptiste Lesseps, who had previously lived in Russia for 10 years and knew the Russian language very well.

At the end of September, La Perouse went to sea, but did not go directly south, but first looked into the area of the ocean where, 36 years before him, Bering tried to find the ill-fated “Land of Joao da Gama.” Are myths really that durable? After some time, “Bussol” and “Astrolabe” nevertheless headed south and reached Samoa in early December. A tragedy occurred there: 12 members of the expedition, including de Langle, went ashore and fell into a trap set by the islanders, who stoned them to death. We must give La Perouse his due: he did not take revenge and open cannon fire on the inhospitable island. Having then visited the islands of Tonga and Norfolk, on January 23, 1788, the French approached the coast of Australia and three days later entered Botany Bay. But English ships were already there, bringing the first Australian colonists - convicts. According to the British, in early March, La Perouse's expedition left the shores of Australia. After that, she seemed to disappear into the ground.

A message from La Perouse about his future plans was delivered to France, sent with one of the English ships that left for Europe in February. He was going to continue sailing along the route: Tonga - New Caledonia - Santa Cruz Islands - New Guinea - Ile-de-France (Mauritius). But he never arrived in France or even Mauritius. The return of La Perouse and his companions was expected in 1789, in 1790, when the fire of revolution was already burning in France, and finally, in 1791, an expedition under the command of Joseph Antoine de Bruny d'Entrecasteaux was sent to search for them, two years later returned with nothing.

Only in the 1820s. Irishman Peter Dillon accidentally discovered traces of a shipwreck on the island of Vanikolo (Vanikoro), which, in his opinion, pointed to the expedition of La Perouse. In 1828, the French sailor Jules Sebastien Cesar Dumont-D'Urville, who arrived here, confirmed that Dillon was right. In the 1960s Thanks to underwater research, it was finally possible to establish: the remains of the “Astrolabe” and “Bussoli” are located near the Vanikoro reefs. But exactly how the ships died and what happened to the people is still not known for certain.

FIGURES AND FACTS

Main character

Jean François de Galo, Comte de La Pérouse, French naval sailor

Other characters

Louis XVI, King of France; Fleuriot de Langle, captain of the Astrolabe; Peter Dillon, Irish sailor, etc.

Time of action

Route

From Brest across the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean

Goals

Research and intelligence (remained secret)

Meaning

Conducting important scientific research

3440

The great navigator Jean Francois La Perouse. La Perouse, Jean Francois

Read also