Lapérouse spends six weeks in the colony…
March 1788 CE
The French establish an observatory, hold Catholic masses, make geological observations, and establish a garden.
Their chaplain from L'Astrolabe is buried here (and will be celebrated annually on the anniversary of his death).
Although Phillip and Lapérouse do not meet, there are eleven visits recorded between the French and the English.
Lapérouse takes the opportunity to send his journals, some charts and also some letters back to Europe with a British naval ship from the First Fleet—Alexander.
He also obtains wood and fresh water and, on March 10, leaves for New Caledonia, Santa Cruz, the Solomons, the Louisiades, and the western and southern coasts of Australia.
Lapérouse writes that he expects to be back in France by June 1789.
The documents that he dispatches with Alexander from the in-progress expedition will be brought to Paris, where they will be published in 1797 under the title Voyage de La Pérouse.
However, neither he nor any of his men will be seen again.
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