Alexander manages during the campaign of 1241…

After the peace ending the Seven Years War, the French had decided to colonize the "Isles Malouines" (Falkland Islands).

These islands are at this time almost unknown.

Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, at his own expense, undertakes the task of resettling Acadians who had been deported to France by the British because of their refusal to sign loyalty oaths.

On September 15, 1763, Bougainville had set out from France with the frigate L'Aigle (Eagle) (captained by Nicolas Pierre Duclos-Guyot) and the sloop Le Sphinz (Sphinx) (captained by François Chenard de la Giraudais).

This expedition includes the naturalist and writer Antoine-Joseph Pernety (known as Dom Pernety), the priest and chronicler accompanying the expedition, together with the engineer and geographer Lhuillier de la Serre.

The expedition arrives in late January 1764 in French Bay (later renamed Berkeley Sound).

They land at Port Louis, named after King Louis XV.

A formal ceremony of possession of the Islands is held on April 5, 1764, after which Bougainville and Pernety return to France.

Louis XV will formally ratify possession on September 12, 1764.

Although the French colony in the Falklands does not number more than one hundred and fifty people, for financial motivations (Bougainville having paid for the expeditions) and diplomatic reasons (Spain fears that the Falklands will become a rear base to attack her Peruvian gold), Bougainville is ordered by the French government to dismantle his colony and sell it to the Spanish.

Bougainville receives 200,000 francs in Paris and an additional 500,000 francs in Buenos Aires.

Spain agrees to maintain the colony in Port Louis, thus preventing Britain from claiming title to the islands.

Spain had claimed dominion before the French settlement in association with its colonies on the mainland.

On January 31, 1767 at Río de la Plata, Bougainville meets Don Felipe Ruiz Puente, commanding the frigate La Esmeralda and La Liebre ("the Hare") and future governor of Islas Malvinas, to transfer possession and evacuate the French population.