[LA PÉROUSE EXPEDITION] Handwritten document requesting additional equipment for the Astrolabe, written on board the ship prior to its departure from Brest, dated 10 June 1785.

A$12,000 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Manuscript in ink on laid paper watermarked TM , 1 page, quarto (210 x 170 mm). [Brest], à bord [l Astrolabe], le 10 juin 1785 . Headed pour L astrolabe , and signed at the foot de Monti , the note comprises a short list of equipment that is required for the vessel: two rudder bars a spike for the long ropes; three cramps for the hatch bars; three padlocks for the same; two dozen rings for the jib sail lines [ ]. The above-mentioned were not provided with the rest of the equipment (our translation); two further signatures in the lower margin, Fraboulet (previously an officer on the Astrée , commanded by La Pérouse in 1781) and Lelarge'(?); faint original folds, extremely well preserved. A tangible relic of the ill-fated expedition of La Pérouse, 1785-1788. This previously unpublished document requesting various articles of equipment for L Astrolabe was written on board the vessel by her second-in-command, French naval officer and navigator Anne-Georges-Augustin de Monti (1753-1788), a matter of weeks before the departure of the La Pérouse expedition from Brest. The objectives of this most famous of French expeditions, preparations for which had commenced in 1783 under the royal patronage of Louis XVI, were to carry out exploration and scientific research in the Pacific, and to investigate possibilities for the establishment of French colonies in the region. Under the command of Jean-François de Galaup La Pérouse, its two ships, L Astrolabe and La Boussole , departed Brest on

• Binding: Hardcover

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