LOUIS XVI. AND THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION—VOYAGE OF LAPÉROUSE—ARRIVAL AT EASTER ISLAND—ADDRESS OF THE NATIVES—OWHYHEE—TRADE AT MOWEE—SURVEY OF THE AMERICAN COAST—A REMARKABLE INLET—DISTRESSING CALAMITY—SOJOURN AT MONTEREY—RUN ACROSS THE PACIFIC—THE JAPANESE WATERS—ARRIVAL AT PETROPAULOWSKI—AFFRAY AT NAVIGATORS' ISLES—LAPÉROUSE ARRIVES AT BOTANY BAY, AND IS NEVER SEEN AGAIN, ALIVE OR DEAD—VOYAGES MADE IN SEARCH OF HIM—D'ENTRECASTEAUX—DILLON—D'URVILLE—DISCOVERY OF NUMEROUS RELICS OF THE SHIPS AT MANICOLO—THEORY OF THE FATE OF LAPÉROUSE—ERECTION OF A MONUMENT TO HIS MEMORY.

Louis XVI., King of France, became at this period deeply interested in the study of the science of geography and navigation. Upon the perusal of the voyages, discoveries, and services of Cook, he conceived the idea of admitting the French nation to a share in the glory which the English were reaping from maritime adventure and exploration. He drew up a plan of campaign with his own hand, ordered the two frigates Boussole and Astrolabe to be prepared for sea, and gave the command of the expedition to Jean-FranÇois Galaup de la PÉrouse,—better known as LapÉrouse. The vessels were supplied with every accessory of which they could possibly have need. The instructions and recommendations received from the Academy of Sciences fill a quarto volume of four hundred pages. The fleet sailed from Brest on the 1st of August, 1785, and arrived at ConcepÇion, in Chili, late in February, 1786.

After a short stay here, the two frigates again put to sea, and, early in April, anchored in Cook's Bay, in Easter Island. Here the two commanders landed, accompanied by about seventy persons, twelve of whom were marines armed to the teeth. Five hundred Indians awaited them at the shore, the greater part of them naked, painted, and tattooed, others wearing pendent bunches of odoriferous herbs about their loins, and others still being covered with pieces of white and yellow cloth. None of them were armed, and, as the boats touched the land, they advanced with the utmost alacrity to aid the strangers in their disembarkation. The latter marked out a circular space, where they set up a tent, and enjoined it strongly upon the islanders not to intrude upon this enclosure. The number of the natives had now increased to eight hundred, one hundred and fifty of whom were women. While the latter would seek, by caresses and agreeable pantomime, to withdraw the attention of the Frenchmen from passing events, the men would slyly pick their pockets. Innumerable handkerchiefs were pilfered in this way; and the thieves, emboldened by success, at last seized their caps from their heads and rushed off with them. It was noticed that the chiefs were the most adroit and successful plunderers, and that though, for appearance' sake, they sometimes ran after an offender, promising to bring him back, it was evident that they were running as slowly as they could, and that their object was rather to facilitate than to prevent their escape. LapÉrouse was not saved from spoliation by his rank: a polite savage, having assisted him over an obstruction in the path, removed his chapeau and fled with the utmost rapidity. On re-embarking to return to the ships, only three persons had handkerchiefs, and only two had caps. LapÉrouse stayed but a day on this island, having nothing to gain and every thing to lose. There was no fresh water to be found, the natives drinking sea-water, like the albatrosses of Cape Horn. In return for the hospitality with which they had been received, LapÉrouse caused several fertile spots to be sown with beets, cabbages, wheat, carrots, and squashes, and even with orange, lemon, and cotton seeds. "In short," says LapÉrouse, "we loaded them with presents, overwhelmed with caresses the young and children at the breast; we sowed their fields with useful grains; we left kids, sheep, and hogs to multiply upon their island; we asked nothing in exchange; and yet they robbed us of our hats and handkerchiefs, and threw stones at us when we left." The following reflection, which concludes LapÉrouse's account of Easter Island, could only have proceeded from a Frenchman:—"I decided to depart during the night, flattering myself that when, upon the return of day, they should find our vessels gone, they would attribute our departure to our just resentment at their conduct, and that this conclusion might render them better members of society."

LapÉrouse now sailed to the northeast, intending to touch at the Sandwich Islands,—a distance of five thousand miles. He hoped to make some discovery during this long stretch, and placed sailors in the tops, animated by the promise of a prize to discover as many islands as possible. In the furtherance of this design, the two frigates sailed ten miles apart,—by which the visible horizon was considerably extended. LapÉrouse was destined, however, to owe his celebrity to his misfortunes and not to his discoveries: he arrived, on the 28th of May, at Owhyhee, without once making land. "The aspect of the island," he writes, "was charming. But the sea beat with such violence upon the coast, that, like Tantalus, we could only long for and devour with our eyes that which it was impossible for us to reach." This prospect was aggravated by the sight of one hundred and fifty canoes laden with pigs and fruit which put out from the shore: forty of them were capsized in attempting to come alongside while the frigates were under full sail. The water was full of swimming savages, struggling pigs, and tempting cocoanuts; but the necessity of making an anchorage before nightfall compelled them to seek another portion of the island.

On the 30th of May, LapÉrouse landed upon the island of Mowee, where he found the savages mild, polite, and commercially inclined. Exchanges of pigs and medals were made with great success. LapÉrouse abstained from taking possession of the island in the name of the King of France,—Cook not having visited Mowee,—inasmuch as he considered European usages in this respect extremely ridiculous. "Philosophers must often have wept," he writes, "at seeing men, simply because they have cannon and bayonets, count sixty thousand of their fellow-creatures as nothing, and look upon a land which its inhabitants have moistened with their sweat and fertilized with the bones of their ancestors for centuries as an object of legitimate conquest."

On the 23d of June, in latitude 60° north, LapÉrouse struck the American coast: he recognised at once Behring's Mount St. Elias, whose summit pierced the clouds. From this point southward as far as Monterey, in Mexico, lay an extent of coast which Cook had seen but not surveyed. The exploration of this coast was a work essential to the interests of navigation and of commerce; and, though the season only allowed him three months, he undertook and executed it in a manner creditable to the navy of France. He discovered a harbor that had escaped the notice of preceding navigators. This harbor or bay seems to have been a remarkable place. The water is unfathomable, and is surrounded by precipices which rise perpendicularly from the water's edge into the regions of eternal snow. Not a blade of grass, not a green leaf, grows in this desolate and sterile spot. No breeze blows upon the surface of the bay: its tranquillity is never troubled except by the fall of enormous masses of ice from numerous overhanging peaks. The air is so still and the silence so profound that the noise made by a bird in laying an egg in the hollow of a rock is distinctly heard at the distance of a mile and a half. To this wonderful bay LapÉrouse gave the name of Frenchport.

A painful accident occurred as the vessels, after a somewhat prolonged stay, were about departing from the spot. Three boats, manned by twenty-seven men and officers, were sent to make soundings in the bay, in order to complete the chart of the survey. They had strict orders to avoid a certain dangerous current, but became involved in it unawares. Two boats' crews perished, consisting of twenty-one men, the greater part of them under twenty-five years of age. Two brothers, by the name of Laborde, whom their superior officers never separated, but always sent together on missions of peril, were among the victims of the disaster. A monument was erected to their memory, and a record buried in a bottle beneath it. The inscription was thus conceived:—

"At the entrance of this bay twenty-one brave sailors perish'd:
Whoever you may be, mingle your tears with ours."

On the 13th of September, LapÉrouse arrived at Monterey, after a cursory examination of the coast, determining its directions, but without exploring its sinuosities and inlets. The Spanish commander of the fort and of the two Californias had received orders from Mexico to extend all possible hospitality to the adventurers. He executed his instructions to the letter, sending immense quantities of fresh beef, eggs, milk, vegetables, and poultry on board, and then declining to hand in the bill. On the 24th, every thing being in readiness, the vessels started upon their route across the Pacific, the intention of LapÉrouse being to make for Macao, on the Chinese coast. He hoped on his way to make many discoveries of islands upon this unknown sea,—the Spaniards, in their single beaten track from Acapulco to Manilla, never varying more than thirty miles to the north or south of their usual and average latitude. He also hoped not to find, in the longitude marked against it, a very doubtful island named Nostra SeÑora de la Gorta, that he might erase it from the charts. This he was unable to do, for the winds did not allow him to pass within a hundred miles of its supposed position. When half-way across the Pacific, he discovered a naked, barren rock, to which he gave the name of Necker, after the French Minister of Finance. He arrived at Macao on the 3d of January, 1787, after a voyage entirely free from incident or adventure. He spent three months here and at Manilla, and finally, on the 10th of April, started for the scene of the most important portion of his mission,—the coasts of Tartary and of Japan,—the waters which separate the mainland of the former from the islands of the latter being very imperfectly known to Europeans.

Early in June, LapÉrouse entered a sea never before ploughed by a European keel; and, as it was only known from Japanese or Corean charts, published by the Jesuits, it was his first object either to verify their surveys or to correct their errors. As the Jesuits travelled and made their calculations by land, LapÉrouse added hydrographic details and observations to their data, which he found quite generally correct. His voyage in these latitudes set many doubts at rest. After several months spent in these labors, the expedition arrived at Petropaulowski in September of the same year. The officers were grievously disappointed in not finding letters and despatches from France, but one evening, during a Kamschatka gala ball, the arrival of a courier from Okhotsk was announced, and the ball was interrupted that the mail might be opened and delivered. The news was favorable for all, though, after so long an absence, it was natural that there should be evil tidings for some among so many. LapÉrouse learned that he had been promoted in rank; and the Governor of Okhotsk caused this event to be celebrated by a grand discharge of artillery. M. de Lesseps, the interpreter attached to the expedition, was detached from it at this point by LapÉrouse and sent across the continent by way of Okhotsk, Irkoutsk, and Tobolsk to St. Petersburg, and thence to Paris, with the ships' letters and LapÉrouse's journal. It is from this journal, published at Paris, that we have obtained the details of the expedition as we have thus far chronicled them.

The track of LapÉrouse was now directly south, through the heart of the Pacific Ocean. He touched, on the 9th of December, at Maouna, one of Navigator's Isles. The vessels were at once surrounded by a hundred or more canoes filled with pigs and fruit, which the natives would only exchange for glass beads, which in their eyes were what diamonds are to Europeans. Delangle, the captain of the Astrolabe, went ashore with the watering party. The islanders made no objection to their landing their casks; but as the tide receded, leaving the boats high and dry upon the beach, they became troublesome, and finally forced Delangle to a trial of his muskets. For this they took a sanguinary vengeance. Delangle was killed by a single blow from a club, as was Lamanon, the naturalist. Eleven marines were savagely murdered, either with stones or heavy sticks, while twenty were seriously wounded. The rest escaped by swimming. LapÉrouse did not feel himself sufficiently strong to attempt reprisals. The natives hurled stones with such force and accuracy that they were more than a match for as many musketeers. Besides, he had lost thirty-two men and two boats, and his situation generally was such that the slightest mischance would now compel him to disarm one frigate in order to refit the other. It was late in January, 1788, that he arrived at Botany Bay, in New Holland,—the last place in which he was ever seen, alive or dead.

His last letter to the Minister of Marine was dated at Botany Bay, the 7th of February. In this he stated the route by which he intended to return home, and the dates of his anticipated arrivals at various points. His plan was to visit the Friendly Islands, New Guinea, and Van Diemen's Land, and to be at the Isle of France, near Madagascar, at the beginning of December. His letter arrived in due course at Paris, where the public mind was too much agitated by the throes of revolution to pay much heed to matters of such remote interest. At last, in the year 1791, the Society of Natural History called the attention of the Constituent Assembly to the fate of LapÉrouse and his companions. The hope of recovering at least some wreck of an expedition undertaken to promote the sciences induced the Assembly to send two other ships to Botany Bay, with orders to steer the same course from that place that LapÉrouse had traced out for himself. Some of his followers, it was thought, might have escaped from the wreck, and might be confined on a desert island or thrown upon some savage coast. Two ships were therefore fitted out, and placed under the command of Rear-Admiral d'Entrecasteaux.

The ships returned in two years, without having obtained the slightest clue to the fate of LapÉrouse: their commander had died of scurvy at Java. At the Friendly Islands, the first landing that LapÉrouse was to make after leaving Botany Bay, the inhabitants, who remembered Cook perfectly, and who knew the difference between French and English, declared that LapÉrouse had not visited them. As they were the most civilized and hospitable of all the Pacific islanders, it was thought improbable that he had ever sailed as far as the very first station of his route,—an opinion which was confirmed by finding no trace of him at any subsequent point of his intended track. No floating remnants of wood or iron work were anywhere discovered; and the public mind gradually settled into the conviction that the two unfortunate vessels were lost upon their passage from Botany Bay to the Friendly Islands. The cause was supposed to be neither fire, nor leakage, nor the effects of a stress of weather,—causes which could hardly be fatal at the same moment to two vessels. It was generally believed that, as the Boussole and Astrolabe were accustomed to keep as near each other as possible during the night, they both simultaneously dashed upon a hidden quicksand. In this manner, one vessel would not have been able to take warning in time by the disaster of the other.

In the year 1813, one Captain Dillon, in the service of the British East India Company, putting in at one of the Feejee Islands, found there two foreign sailors, one of whom was a Prussian, the other a Lascar. At their request he transported them to the neighboring island of Tucopia, where he left them, the natives expressing no hostility toward them nor objections to their stay. In 1826,—thirteen years afterward,—Captain Dillon again touched at Tucopia, where he found them comfortable and contented. The Lascar sold the armorer a silver sword-hilt of French manufacture and bearing a cipher engraved upon it. It resulted from Dillon's inquiries that the natives had obtained many articles of iron and other metals from a distant island named Manicolo, where, as they said, two European ships had been wrecked forty years before. It immediately occurred to Dillon that this circumstance was connected with the loss of the vessel of LapÉrouse, whose fate still remained involved in uncertainty. Aware of the interest felt in Europe in the fate of the unfortunate navigator, he sailed with the Prussian to Manicolo, but, being prevented from landing by the surf and the coral reef, bore away to New Zealand and proceeded on his voyage.

In 1827, Dumont d'Urville was sent out by the French Government in the sloop-of-war Astrolabe to explore the great archipelagoes of the Pacific, with incidental authority to follow up any clue he might discover to the fate of LapÉrouse. At Hobart Town, in Van Diemen's Land, he heard some account of the efforts made by Dillon, and determined to conclude what he had begun. He sailed at once for Manicolo, and, after examining the eastern coast of the island without success, proceeded to the western. Here he found numerous articles of European manufacture in possession of the savages, who steadfastly refused to say whence they had obtained them or to point out the scene of any catastrophe or shipwreck. At last, the offer of a piece of red cloth induced a painted islander to conduct a boat's crew to the spot which is now regarded as that at which the lamented commander and his vessels met their untimely fate. Scattered about in the bed of the sea, at the depth of about twenty feet, lay anchors, cannon, and sheets of lead and copper sheathing, completely corroded and disfigured by rust. They succeeded in recovering many of them from the water,—an anchor of fourteen hundred pounds, a small cannon coated with coral, and two brass swivels, in a good state of preservation. Thus possessed of evidence which after the lapse of forty years must be considered as conclusive, d'Urville erected near the anchorage a cenotaph to the memory of the hapless navigator. It was placed in a small grove, and consecrated by a salute of twenty-one guns and three volleys of musketry.

The islanders were now profuse in their explanations of the circumstances attending the calamity. As far as d'Urville could interpret their language and their pantomime, the ships struck upon the reef during a gale in the night. One speedily sank, only thirty of her crew escaping; the other remained for a time entire, but afterwards went to pieces, her whole crew having been saved. From her timbers they constructed a schooner, in which labor they occupied seven moons or months, and then sailed away and never returned. What befell them after their second embarkation, what was the fate of their daring little vessel,—if indeed any such was ever built,—no one has survived to tell. It is safe to believe that both vessels were lost upon the island of Vanikoro, now one of the archipelago of the New Hebrides. It is supposed that LapÉrouse was the first European navigator that visited it, Dillon the second, and d'Urville the third.