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ExplorationAugust 1785 – 1788

The Disappearance of La Pérouse’s Expedition

The French expedition of La Pérouse, exploring the Pacific, vanished after leaving Botany Bay in Australia in 1788; forty years later the wrecks of both ships were found at Vanikoro.

La Pérouse — engraved portrait (Rijksmuseum)
La Pérouse — engraved portrait (Rijksmuseum)

Rijksmuseum · CC0 · Source

In 1785, on the orders of Louis XVI, La Pérouse left Brest with two ships, the Boussole and the Astrolabe. By way of Chile, Hawaii, Alaska, California, Macao and the Philippines, in 1787 he passed Jeju and sailed the East Sea, charting Ulleungdo as “Dagelet Island”. A letter saying he was leaving Botany Bay in Australia in March 1788 was the last word from him.

In 1827 the Irish captain Peter Dillon found relics of the expedition on Vanikoro, east of the Solomon Islands, and the next year the Frenchman Dumont d’Urville located the wrecks on the reef; both ships seem to have been driven onto it by a storm. In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas Jules Verne sent the Nautilus past these wrecks.

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The map in 1785

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States at the time
France
Places
Vanikoro

People

  • Jean-François de La Pérouse1741 – 1788

    key figure · French naval officer and explorer who set out to explore the Pacific for Louis XVI in 1785 and vanished with his expedition at Vanikoro in 1788

Before and after

Earlier
1762 Rousseau’s The Social Contract
Later
1789 French Revolution

Themes that include this event

  • Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas1702 – 1958

    Jules Verne’s novel of Captain Nemo’s submarine Nautilus circling the world beneath the sea — the treasure ships of Vigo Bay, La Pérouse’s wrecks, the giant squid and the Atlantic cable behind it, and the people who really reached the South Pole and passed under the North Pole after the novel went there first