Jean François de Galaup,çoisdeGalaupcomtedeLapé comte de Lapérouse (; variant spelling: La Pérouse; 23 August 17411788?), often called simply Lapérouse, was a French naval officer and explorer. Having enlisted at the age of 15, he had a successful naval career and in 1785 was appointed to lead a scientific expedition around the world. His ships stopped in Chile, Hawaii, Alaska, California, Mauritius, Reunion, Macau, Japan, Russia, and Australia, before wrecking on the reefs of Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands.
Early career
Jean-François de Galaup was born near Albi, France. His family was ennobled in 1558.
Lapérouse studied in a Jesuit college, and joined the Navy as a Garde-Marine in Brest on 19 November 1756. In 1757 he was appointed to the French ship Célèbre and participated in a supply expedition to the fort of Louisbourg in New France. Lapérouse also took part in a second supply expedition in 1758 to Louisbourg, but as this was in the early years of the Seven Years' War, the fort was under siege and the expedition was forced to make a circuitous route around Newfoundland to avoid British patrols.
In 1759, Lapérouse was wounded in the Battle of Quiberon Bay, where he was serving aboard Formidable. He was captured and briefly imprisoned before being paroled back to France; he was formally exchanged in December 1760. He participated in a 1762 attempt by the French to gain control of Newfoundland, escaping with the fleet when the British arrived in force to drive them out.
At the outbreak of the Anglo-French War in 1778, Lapérouse was given command of the 32-gun frigate Amazone. On 7 October 1779, he captured the 20-gun HMS Ariel. Lapérouse was promoted to Captain on 4 April 1780, and was part of the Expédition Particulière under Admiral Ternay, departing Brest on 2 May 1780. From October to November 1780, Amazone sailed from Rhode Island to Lorient, and from there to the Caribbean.
Lapérouse then transferred to Astrée. In the summer of 1781, he was offered command of the 50-gun Sagittaire, but as his crew was sick with scurvy, he requested permission to keep command of Astrée, and was appointed to lead a frigate division, along with Hermione, under Latouche-Tréville.
Lapérouse escorted a convoy to the West Indies in December 1781, participated in the attack on St. Kitts in February 1782 and then fought in the defeat at the Battle of the Saintes against the squadron of Admiral Rodney. In August 1782, he made his name by capturing two English forts (Prince of Wales Fort and York Fort) on the coast of Hudson Bay, but allowed the survivors, including Governor Samuel Hearne of Prince of Wales Fort, to sail off to England in exchange for a promise to release French prisoners held in England. The next year, his family finally consented to his marriage to Louise-Eléonore Broudou, a young creole of modest origins whom he had met on Île de France (present-day Mauritius) eight years earlier.
Scientific expedition around the world
Objectives
Lapérouse was appointed in 1785 by Louis XVI and by the Secretary of State of the Navy, the Marquis de Castries, to lead an expedition around the world. Many countries were initiating voyages of scientific explorations at that time.
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 adopted the concept (though not its author, Bolts), leading to the dispatch of the Lapérouse expedition. Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu, Director of Ports and Arsenals, stated in the draft memorandum on the expedition that he submitted to the Louis XVI: "the utility which may result from a voyage of discovery ... has made me receptive to the views put to me by Mr. Bolts relative to this enterprise". But Fleurieu explained to the King: "I am not proposing at all, however, the plan for this voyage as it was conceived by Mr. Bolts".