Many countries are initiating voyages of scientific…
February 1785 CE
Louis XVI and his court had been stimulated by a proposal from the Dutch-born merchant adventurer 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 French court had adopted the concept (though not its author, Bolts), leading to the dispatch of the Lapérouse expedition.
The expedition's aims are to complete the Pacific discoveries of James Cook (whom Lapérouse greatly admires), correct and complete maps of the area, establish trade contacts, open new maritime routes and enrich French science and scientific collections.
His ships are L'Astrolabe (under Fleuriot de Langle) and La Boussole, both five hundred tons.
They are storeships reclassified as frigates for the occasion.
Their objectives are 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 are 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.
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West Europe
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