(formerly L'Autruche) Frigate (3m).
Tons:
450. Hull:
wood. Comp.:
109. Built:
France; 1781.
L'Astrolabe was the second of two ships in the Comte de La Pérouse's expedition to the Pacific in 1785-88. A former supply vessel, L'Astrolabe sailed under command of Paul-Antoine-Marie Fleuriot de Langle. In company with
La Boussole, she sailed from Brest on August 1, 1785, calling at Brazil, Chile, Easter Island, and Hawaii before making an extensive survey of the Pacific coast of North America from Mount St. Elias to Monterey. The two ships then crossed to Macao and stayed for the first two months of 1787 before sailing to the Philippines, the Sea of Japan, and Sakhalin Island (where de Langle was honored with the name of a bay), and along the Kurile Islands to the remote Russian settlement at Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
In September, they sailed south and did not make landfall until December 6, when they landed in the Samoan Islands (which Bougainville had called the Navigators) and anchored at Tutuila. On December 11, de Langle went ashore to get fresh water and was attacked by more than 1,000 Samoans who killed him and 11 of his crew, and wounded 20 others. Although the attack seemed unprovoked, La Pérouse refused to allow any reprisals, carrying out to the letter Louis XVI's injunction that "he will have recourse to arms only as a last extremity, only as a means of defense, and in circumstances when any tolerance would inevitably place the ships and the King's subjects in danger."
La Pérouse appointed Robert Sutton de Clonard to command L'Astrolabe and the ships sailed for Botany Bay, Australia, where they arrived on January 24, 1788. The French sent their last dispatches home, announcing their intention to visit Tonga, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, the Louisiade Archipelago, and the west coast of Australia before returning to France in June 1789. Nothing was heard from the ships after their departure from Botany Bay in March, and in 1791, the French government dispatched a search expedition under Chevalier d'Entrecasteaux in La Recherche and
L'Esperance. No sign of the La Pérouse expedition was discovered until Captain Peter Dillon recovered artifacts from the ships on the island of Vanikoro in 1826.
La Pérouse, Journal of Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse. Shelton, From Hudson's Bay to Botany Bay.
