Carte Generale des Decouvertes

Chart of the northern Philippines, east coast of China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and north east Asia, showing the track of the French expedition of Lapérouse.


This is one of the major charts from the ill-fated voyage of Jean Francois de Galaup, Comte de Lapérouse, showing the track of his ships, the Boussole and the Astrolabe as they surveyed the coasts of east Asia, from the northern Philippines to the Straits of Tartary between the Asian mainland and the island of Sakhalin. Once that was completed, the route then shows the ships arriving in the port of St. Pierre and St. Paul or modern Petropavlosk on the Kamchatka Peninsula. It was there that one of the crew members, Barthelemy de Lesseps, disembarked and would then undertake a two-year journey to Paris with the current research undertake by the expedition.


At this point, Lapérouse learned of the presence of the First Fleet off the east coast of Australia and the possible establishment of an English settlement there. His fleet rapidly sailed south only to find the English in Botany Bay, probably to their dismay as a report on the viability of a French settlement in Australia was also one of the main aims of the expedition. The French ships arrived in Botany Bay in 1788, stayed there for six weeks, and then sailed into the Pacific. Botany Bay was their last recorded port of call.


Coloured. [SEAS2900]