Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse

Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse

Jean-François de Galaup was born in Albi, France, on 23rd August, 1741. He came from a distinguished and wealthy family. His mother was the daughter of a army colonel and his nephew, Pierre-Jacques Traffanel de la Jonquiere, reached the rank of commodore in the navy and later became governor of French Canada.

His father, Victor-Joseph de Galaup, owned land that became known as the Domaine de La Peyrouse. Later, the family changed its name to de Galaup de la Pérouse. However, he usually signed letters and reports with the single word "Lapérouse".

In November 1756, Galaup joined the Cadet School at Brest. He did so with a new name, Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse. During the Seven Years War he was assigned to the ship Célèbre and saw action at Cape Breton Island (now known as Nova Scotia). In June, 1759, he became part of an expedition intended to effect a landing in England. This plan came to an end when his ship, Formidable was captured during the Battle of Quiberon Bay. La Pérouse, who was slightly wounded, was taken prisoner. He was released on parole and was sent home to Albi to recuperate.

After the loss of French Canada and French India, La Pérouse considered leaving the French Navy. He eventually decided to return to Brest to complete his studies and on 1st October 1764 he was promoted to the rank of enseigne. In 1768 he joined the Turquoise, under the command of Charles-Henri-Louis d'Arsac de Ternay. He followed Ternay when he took command of the Belle-Poule. Terney took La Pérouse with him when he became governor of Île de France (now known as Mauritius). In 1772 La Pérouse took part in the suppression of tribes in Madagascar, an island in the Indian Ocean.

On 21st April 1773, La Pérouse took command of the Seine, a ship of 700 tons, carrying 30 guns, with a complement of 110 officers and men. His instructions were to sail to India by the way of Réunion. He left port on 18th May. As his biographer, John Dunmore, has pointed out: "He had no chronometer and depended on dead reckoning, on constant soundings and on signs traditionally used by sailors: flights of birds, cloud formations, the colour of the sea."

La Pérouse reached the Seychelles on 5th June. The small European settlement on the island of Mahé was in total disarray and he spent three weeks reorganising the colony, before sailing for Pondicherry, a French port in south-east India. He then travelled down the Ganges until he reached Chandernagore, the French settlement near Calcutta. After taking on supplies for Mauritius, he arrived on Port Louis, on 24th March, 1774.

Charles-Henri-Louis d'Arsac de Ternay sent La Pérouse back to India later that year. This included giving support to Hayder Ali, who was defending his independence against the British India Company. When he arrived at Mahé he found the fort under attack from the Malabars led by Prince Cherikal. He reorganised the defences and was able to force the Malabars to retreat.

In June 1775 La Pérouse wrote to his sister that he had begun a relationship with 20 year old, Louise Eléonore Broudou. He confessed that he was "a little in love with a young person from this island and this could end up in a marriage". John Dunmore points out: "Jacquette Galaup, as no doubt her brother had intended her to, relayed the information to her mother and then to her father. Galaup's reaction was immediate: he had no wish to see his son married into some lower middle-class family, to the daughter of a senior clerk in the administrative service... this was still the age of arranged marriage, and children were expected to accept the bride their parents chose for them, not to give way to romantic attachments." His father wrote to Charles-Henri-Louis d'Arsac de Ternay asking him to stop the marriage. This he agreed to do as a navy officer could not marry against the wishes of his superiors."

In May 1776, Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, made a knight of the Order of St Louis and granted a pension of 300 livres. He moved to Paris with his mentor, Charles-Henri-Louis d'Arsac de Ternay, and began to help prepare for a war with England. On the outbreak of fighting he was sent to Saint Malo to take command of a brand new frigate, the Amazone.

In August 1778 he captured twelve English ships in the North Sea. However, the English fought back and were able to capture Pondicherry in India and the French island of St Lucia. It was decided to send La Pérouse to the Indian Ocean in preparation for a battle against the English in the West Indies. He left Brest with command of 60 vessels on 1st May, 1779. Within days of his arrival he was involved in a battle that resulted in the capture of Grenada.

The following year he joined Charles-Henri-Louis d'Arsac de Ternay in escorting 5,000 French soldiers in 28 transport ships in a convoy to America. He returned to France where he took command of a new frigate, the Astrée and took another convoy to Boston. On arriving he discovered that Ternay had died. He wrote that Ternay was "the greatest friend I had in the world... he had been a father to me since I joined the navy".

La Pérouse was engaged on raids against privateers around the coast of Massachusetts. He was then sent to Cape Breton Island where he was involved in a sea battle that resulted in three of his men being killed. His ship was badly damaged and he therefore missed the Battle of Chesapeake that ended in the surrender of Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown.

La Pérouse was given the command of the 74 gun warship, Sceptre. On 31st May 1782, he left Santo Domingo, taking 300 soldiers to Newfoundland, with orders to destroy the prosperous Hudson's Bay Company. The soldiers were able to capture Prince of Wales Fort on 8th August. La Pérouse described the commander of the fort, Samuel Hearne, as "a handsome man, well educated and with a wide knowledge" and was allowed to sail back to England on the Severn. The fort was then blown up. Later that month he reached the Company's other post, York Factory, which he also destroyed. He arrived at Cadiz on 13th October 1782. La Pérouse had 400 sick men on board and 70 had died of scurvy and related illnesses during the journey. He wrote to his mother that it had been "the hardest campaign ever undertaken".

In 1784 he settled in Paris and was granted a pension of 800 livres. Aged 42, he married Louise Eléonore Broudou on 8th July without permission from his father. In order to prevent gossip, his parents arranged a second ceremony at the cathedral in Albi. His biographer, John Dunmore, points out: "However, an officer still needed his superiors' permission to marry. La Pérouse had not sought it, so he wrote direct to the Minister, apologising for his omission, detailing his romantic odyssey and the years of waiting." Charles Eugène Gabriel de La Croix, the Secretary of State for the Navy, replied with a friendly letter, approving the marriage.

During this period King Louis XVI had approved a plan for a French expedition to explore the Bering Sea. La Pérouse was selected as the leader of this proposed expedition. On 1st August 1785, La Pérouse, in command of two ships, La Boussole and L'Astrolabe left Brest. Among his 114-man crew there were ten scientists. After rounding Cape Horn he visited Chile, Easter Island and the Sandwich Islands.

La Pérouse was amazed by what he observed in Alaska. "We had already been to the end of the bay which is perhaps the most extraordinary place on earth. Imagine a vast basin, whose depth in the centre is impossible to estimate, edged by great, steep, snow-covered mountains; not a single blade of grass can be seen on this immense rocky mass which Nature has condemned to perpetual sterility. I have never seen a single breath of wind disturb the surface of this water which is affected only by the enormous blocks of ice that fall quite frequently from five different glaciers, making as they drop a sound that echoes far into the mountains. The air is so clear and the silence so deep that the voice of one man can be heard half a league away, as can the sound of birds which have laid their eggs in the hollows formed by the rocks."

On 13th July 1786 La Pérouse sent out two longboats to explore Lituya Bay. He recalled in his journal that Charles-Marie Fantin de Boutin and his boat returned on his own: "At 10 a.m. I saw my little boat coming back. Somewhat surprised as I was not expecting it so soon, I asked Mr Boutin before he had a chance to come on board whether there was something new; I feared at first an attack by the natives; Mr Boutin's appearance was not reassuring: the greatest sadness showed on his face. He soon told me of the awful disaster he had just witnessed and from which he had escaped only because his firm character had enabled him to see what resources he still had in such a great peril. Carried (by following his commanding officer) towards the breakers leading to the pass while the tide was flowing out at 3 or 4 leagues an hour, he decided to present the stern of his boat to the waves so that, pushed by them and abandoning himself to them, they would not swamp his boat, but nevertheless he was likely to be carried out to sea by the tide. Soon he saw the breakers in front of him and found himself in the open sea: more concerned about the safety of his comrades than his own, he rowed along the edge of the breakers in the hope of saving some; he even went back among them, but the tide continued to drive him out. In the end he climbed on Mr Mouton's shoulders in order to scan a wider scene: it was all in vain, everything had sunk out of sight!" All the men in the other boat were drowned.

In August the La Pérouse expedition turned south where they surveyed the coast of California. On 14th September, 1786, La Pérouse landed at Monterey. He wrote in his journal: The sea is fairly rough and one can only stay a few hours in such an anchorage, waiting for daylight or a break in the fog... One cannot put into words the number of whales that surrounded us nor their familiarity; they blew constantly, within half a pistol shot of our frigates, and filled the air with a great stench."

La Pérouse visited Fort Loreto, the Presidio of Monterey: "Loreto is the only Presidio of the Old California on the East coast of this peninsula; it has a garrison of 54 cavalrymen who supply small detachments to the following 15 missions, which are in the care of the Dominican Fathers who succeeded the Jesuits and the Franciscans; the latter have remained in sole charge of the ten missions of New California."

In his journal he commented that the Spanish had built 15 missions in California. He argued: "I have already made known my opinion that the way of life of the people who have been converted to Christianity would be more favourable to a growth in population if the right of property and a certain freedom formed the basis of it; however, since the ten mission stations were set up in Northern California, the Fathers have baptised 7701 Indians of both sexes and have buried only 2388. But it must be stressed that this calculation does not indicate, as in European cities, whether the population is growing or not, because they baptise Independent Indians every day; the only consequence is that Christianity is spreading, and I have already said that the matters of the next life could not be in better hands."

La Pérouse met members of the Costanoans tribe while he was in Monterey: "These Indians are very skilful with the bow; they killed some tiny birds in our presence; it must be said that their patience as they creep towards them is hard to describe; they hide and, so to speak, snake up to the game, releasing the arrow from a mere 15 paces. Their skill with large game is even more impressive; we all of us saw an Indian with a deer's head tied over his own, crawling on all fours, pretending to eat grass, and carrying out this pantomime in such a way that our hunters would have shot him from 30 paces if they had not been forewarned. In this way they go up to deer herds within very close range and kill them with their arrows."

On 23rd September 1786, La Pérouse left Monterey Bay. After crossing the Pacific Ocean, La Pérouse discovered several uncharted islands. He landed at Macau where he sold the furs the had acquired in Alaska. He also spent time in Manila and on 10th April 1787 he set out to survey the coasts and territories north of Korea. This included sailing up the Gulf of Tartary. In September he arrived at Kamchatka. He now decided to send Barthélemy de Lesseps, overland to Paris with his logs, journals and letters, where he had kept a record of his discoveries.

La Pérouse now turned south making for New Holland. In December, 1787, he arrived in Samoa. His men were attacked and twelve of them were killed. La Pérouse left without taking reprisals and sailed through the Pacific Islands to Norfolk Island and Botany Bay. He established a camp on the northern shore and maintained good relations with the English during his six-week stay. La Pérouse took the opportunity to send his journals and letters back to Europe with a British naval ship, the Sirius.

La Pérouse told his hosts that he now intended to head for New Caledonia. He sailed on 10th March 1788 and said he expected to be back in France by June 1789. However, he was not heard of again. Despite several attempts by the French government to find out what happened after he left Australia, the disappearance of Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse and his men, remained a mystery. His journals written between August 1785 and January 1788, were published posthumously in 1797.

In 1813, Peter Dillon, an Irish officer aboard the Hunter, visited Tikopia Island. He discovered one of the islanders was trying to sell the silver guard of a sword of European manufacture. When he asked him where he had got the item he claimed that it came from a neighbouring island called Vanikoro, where two ships had been wrecked. According to Dillon's own account: "He said he had been there about six years back, and that he had seen and conversed with two old men who belonged to the ships... I immediately came to the conclusion that the two ships wrecked must be those under the command of the far-framed and lamented Count de la Pérouse, as no other two European ships were lost or missing at so remote a period." Weather conditions meant that the Hunter was unable to visit Vanikoro. Dillon took the silver guard back to France and it was discovered that it had been made by François-Maximilien Fouasse, of Rue de la Pelleterie, Paris, and was identified as coming from the La Pérouse expedition.

Peter Dillon returned to Tikopia Island and Vanikoro in 1827. He was told a story from one Tikopian: "He had been at Vanikoro for about five years.... From the natives he learned that the two ships alluded to in this narrative ran on shore in the night on reefs some considerable distance from the land... some of the crew as escaped to land were murdered by the islanders. Their skulls were offered to the city in a temple where they remained many years, and were seen by many Tikopians. The narrator did not see the skulls himself but believed they were now mouldered away. The ship which had been wrecked at Paiow, after being on the reef, was driven into a good situation. The crew of these ships consisted of several hundred men. The ship stranded at Paiow was broken up to build a two-masted ship. The people, while employed building the two-masted ship, had a fence built round her of wooden palisading, within which they lived. There were several of the islanders friendly disposed towards them: others were very hostile, and kept up a continual war with the shipwrecked people. When the new vessel was built, all but two men embarked in her, and sailed away for their native country, after which they never returned."

Primary Sources

(1) Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse, journal (July, 1786)

We had already been to the end of the bay which is perhaps the most extraordinary place on earth. Imagine a vast basin, whose depth in the centre is impossible to estimate, edged by great, steep, snow-covered mountains; not a single blade of grass can be seen on this immense rocky mass which Nature has condemned to perpetual sterility. I have never seen a single breath of wind disturb the surface of this water which is affected only by the enormous blocks of ice that fall quite frequently from five different glaciers, making as they drop a sound that echoes far into the mountains. The air is so clear and the silence so deep that the voice of one man can be heard half a league away, as can the sound of birds which have laid their eggs in the hollows formed by the rocks.

(2) Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse, journal (July, 1786)

Our boats left as ordered at 6 a.m. It was as much a pleasure trip as a working expedition: they were to hunt and to lunch under trees. With Mr Descures I sent Mr de Pierrevert and Mr de Montarnal, the only relative I had in the navy, whom I loved like a son; never had a young officer given me such expectations, and as for the Chevalier de Pierrevert he had already acquired what I expected very soon from the former.

Our seven best soldiers made up the crew of this Biscay boat on which my master pilot had also gone to take the soundings; Mr Boutin was seconded in his small boat by Mr Mouton, Frigate Lieutenant. I knew that the Astrolabe's boat was commanded by Mr de Marchainvillc, but I did not know whether there were other officers as well.

At 10 a.m. I saw my little boat coming back. Somewhat surprised as I was not expecting it so soon, I asked Mr Boutin before he had a chance to come on board whether there was something new; I feared at first an attack by the natives; Mr Boutin's appearance was not reassuring: the greatest sadness showed on his face. He soon told me of the awful disaster he had just witnessed and from which he had escaped only because his firm character had enabled him to see what resources he still had in such a great peril. Carried (by following his commanding officer) towards the breakers leading to the pass while the tide was flowing out at 3 or 4 leagues an hour, he decided to present the stern of his boat to the waves so that, pushed by them and abandoning himself to them, they would not swamp his boat, but nevertheless he was likely to be carried out to sea by the tide. Soon he saw the breakers in front of him and found himself in the open sea: more concerned about the safety of his comrades than his own, he rowed along the edge of the breakers in the hope of saving some; he even went back among them, but the tide continued to drive him out. In the end he climbed on Mr Mouton's shoulders in order to scan a wider scene: it was all in vain, everything had sunk out of sight!

(3) Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse, journal (September, 1786)

We found ground everywhere in the bay 4 leagues from land in 60 fathoms... but the sea is fairly rough and one can only stay a few hours in such an anchorage, waiting for daylight or a break in the fog. The tide is full at the new and full moons, at one thirty; it rises 7 feet and since this bay is very open the current hardly makes itself felt and I have never found it reaching a speed of half a knot. One cannot put into words the number of whales that surrounded us nor their familiarity; they blew constantly, within half a pistol shot of our frigates, and filled the air with a great stench. We were unaware of this effect, but the local inhabitants told us that the water they send up has a very bad smell which is felt at a fair distance, and this phenomenon would presumably not have been a surprise for the fishermen of Greenland or Nantucket.

Fog almost perpetually covers this coast, which makes it fairly difficult to approach; otherwise, there would be few others where this would be easier - not a single underwater rock can be found below the waterline a cable length from shore where one can drop anchor if the fog is too dense and wait for a break in the weather in order to sight the Spanish settlement situated in the angle formed by the East and South coast.

The sea was covered with pelicans 4 or 5 leagues from shore; it appears that this bird never goes out further and navigators who come upon them in fog can be sure that they are at most that distance from land. We saw these birds for the first time in Monterey Bay, and I have since learnt that they are very common on the whole Californian coast; the Spanish call them alkatros.

A lieutenant-colonel who resides in Monterey is Governor of both Californias; his realm has a circumference of more than 800 leagues, but his real subjects are 282 cavalrymen who have to serve as garrison to five small forts, and supply squads of 4 or 5 men to each of the 25 missions or parishes established in the Old and New California. Such small resources are enough to control and impress some 50,000 Indians roaming in this vast area of America, of whom about 10,000 have embraced Christianity.

These Indians are generally small and weak and show no sign of this love of freedom and independence which characterises the people of the North, whose arts and skills they lack; their colour approaches closely that of blacks whose hair is not frizzy - these people's hair grows long and quite strong; they trim it to a length of 4 or 5 inches; several have a beard, others, according to the missionary fathers, have never had one, and it is a question which has not even been resolved in the district. The Governor, who has travelled extensively into the interior and who has lived among these natives for 15 years, assured us that those who are beardless have pulled it out with the shell of a bivalve they use like tweezers: the head of the missions, who has been equally as long in California, maintained the opposite in our presence; it was difficult for travellers to decide between them. Our duty being to report only what we saw, we must say that we saw only half the adults with a beard; in some cases it is quite bushy, and would have been regarded as impressive in Turkey or around Moscow.

These Indians are very skilful with the bow; they killed some tiny birds in our presence; it must be said that their patience as they creep towards them is hard to describe; they hide and, so to speak, snake up to the game, releasing the arrow from a mere 15 paces.

Their skill with large game is even more impressive; we all of us saw an Indian with a deer's head tied over his own, crawling on all fours, pretending to eat grass, and carrying out this pantomime in such a way that our hunters would have shot him from 30 paces if they had not been forewarned. In this way they go up to deer herds within very close range and kill them with their arrows.

(4) Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse, journal (September, 1786)

Loreto is the only Presidio of the Old California on the East coast of this peninsula; it has a garrison of 54 cavalrymen who supply small detachments to the following 15 missions, which are in the care of the Dominican Fathers who succeeded the Jesuits and the Franciscans; the latter have remained in sole charge of the ten missions of New California, The 15 missions dependent on Loreto are: St Vincent, St Dominic, Rosary, St Ferdinand, St Francis de Borgia, St Gertrude, St Ignatius, Guadelupe, St Rosalie, Concepcion, St Joseph, St Francis Xavier, Loreto, St Joseph of Cape St Lucar, and All Saints.

Approximately four thousand converted Indians, gathered around the 15 above-named parishes, are the only fruit of this long apostolate by the various religious orders that have followed each other in this hard ministry; one can read in Father Venegas' history of California the date when Fort Loreto and the various missions it protects were founded. By comparing their previous state with this year's, it will noticed that the temporal and spiritual progress of these missions is quite slow; there is only a single group of Spanish inhabitants; it is true that the country is unhealthy, and that the province of Sonora, situated on the eastern side of the Gulf of California, just as California is on the western side, appeals much more to Spanish inhabitants who find a fertile soil and rich mines in this country, much more attractive in their eyes than the pearl fisheries of the peninsula which require a certain number of slave divers who are often very difficult to obtain. But northern California seems to me to have many more advantages, in spite of its greater distance from Mexico; its first establishment, which is St Diego, dates only from 1769, on the 26th of the month of July.

(5) Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse, journal (September, 1786)

Prior to Spanish colonisation, the Indians of northern California grew only a little maize and lived almost exclusively on the product of their fishing and hunting; no country has more fish and game of every kind; rabbits, hares and deer were as common as in the royal hunting grounds; otters and seals are as plentiful as in the North, and in winter they kill a very large quantity of bears, foxes, wolves and wild cats. The undergrowth and the plains are full of small grey crested quails that live in groups like those of Europe, but in coveys of three or four hundred. They are plump and taste excellent, the trees provide abodes for the most charming of birds; our ornithologists stuffed several varieties of sparrows, blue jays, tits, spotted woodpeckers, orioles; among birds of prey we saw the white-headed eagle, the great and the small falcon, the goshawk, the sparrow-hawk, the black vulture, the eagle owl and the raven; on the ponds by the sea we found ducks, the grey pelican and the white yellow-crested one, various types of gulls, cormorants, curlews, ringed plovers, small seagulls and herons; and finally we killed and stuffed a promerops which most ornithologists thought belonged to the old continent.

The fertility of this land is also beyond words. Vegetables of every description succeed perfectly; we enriched the gardens of the Governor and the missions with different seeds brought from Paris, which had kept perfectly and will provide them with added benefits.

Crops of maize, barley, peas and wheat can only be compared with those of Chile; our Europeans farmers have no idea of this degree of fertility; the average production of wheat is 70 or 80 to one, extreme cases being sixty and 100. There are very few fruit trees, but the climate is highly suitable for them; it does not differ greatly from that of our southern French provinces, at least it is never any colder but the summer heat is more moderate on account of the constant fogs that make navigation so difficult but give this soil a humidity which is very helpful to its vegetation.

(6) Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse, journal (September, 1786)

This architecture, widespread in the two Californias, has never been changed, in spite of the missionaries' endeavours, the Indians say that they like the open air, that it is convenient to be able to set fire to one's house when it becomes infested by too many fleas and to build a new one in a couple of hours; the independent Indians who move around so much, like all hunting people, have another reason as well; this space of 6 feet by 4 in height in enough to house two families.

(7) Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse, journal (September, 1786)

These customs may appear patriarchal to some of our readers who overlook the fact that there are no belongings in any household that could tempt the cupidity of the neighbouring hut; since their food supplies are assured, their only remaining need is the procreation of other beings as dull as themselves. The men, in order to adopt Christianity, have made greater sacrifices than the women because polygamy was allowed, and it was even their practice to marry all the sisters of a single family; the mission women, on the other hand, enjoy the advantage of receiving the caresses of only one man. I must however admit that I did not understand the unanimous report of the missionaries on this so-called polygamy; how can a savage people accept it, because, as the number of men and women is roughly equal, it imposes a forced continence on several of them? unless faithfulness between spouses is not compulsory as it is in the missions, where the religious take care to lock up one hour after supper the women whose husbands are away as well as all girls over the age of 9; these same women and girls are supervised during the day by matrons; all these precautions are still insufficient, and we have seen men in the stocks and women in irons for having outwitted the vigilance of the female Arguses for whom two eyes is not enough.

The converted Indians have retained all their ancient customs that their new religion does not prohibit; same huts, same games, same clothes - the richest of these is an otter skin cloak covering the back down to the groin; the laziest have only a length of cloth supplied by the mission to hide their nakedness and a small rabbit skin coat covering their shoulders down to the waist: it is tied under the chin with a string, the rest of the body is completely naked, as is the head; some however have very skilfully plaited hats.

The women wear a coat of ill-tanned deer skin; the mission women customarily make this into a little corset with sleeves; with a small reed apron and a skirt of deer skin over their loins coming halfway down their legs, this is their only dress. Girls under 9 wear only a simple belt, and the children of the other sex all go naked.

The men and the women's hair is trimmed to a length of 4 or 5 inches. The Indians of the rancherias who lack iron instruments carry out this operation with burning brands. Their custom is also to paint their bodies in red or, when they are mourning, in black. The missionaries have banned the former, but have had to allow the other because these people are very attached to their friends; they shed tears when they are reminded of them, even though they lost them a long time ago, and feel offended if one should inadvertently pronounce their names in their presence. Family ties are not as strong as those of friendship; children hardly acknowledge their fathers; they leave his hut when they can see to their own subsistence; but they remain attached longer to their mother who brought them up with an extreme kindness and never beat them, except when they displayed cowardice in their little fights against children of their age.

(8) Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse, journal (September, 1786)

I have already made known my opinion that the way of life of the people who have been converted to Christianity would be more favourable to a growth in population if the right of property and a certain freedom formed the basis of it; however, since the ten mission stations were set up in Northern California, the Fathers have baptised 7701 Indians of both sexes and have buried only 2388. But it must be stressed that this calculation does not indicate, as in European cities, whether the population is growing or not, because they baptise Independent Indians every day; the only consequence is that Christianity is spreading, and I have already said that the matters of the next life could not be in better hands.

(9) Peter Dillon, Narrative and Successful Results of a Voyage in the South Seas (1829)

The natives then informed him that those things which he had seen, with the sword guard, had been brought in their canoes from a distant island, which they called Malicolo (Vanikoro), and that two ships, such as the Hunter was, had been wrecked there, when the old men now in Tikopia were boys, and that there yet remained at Vanikoro large quantities of the wrecks. The lascar confirmed this report and said he had been there about six years back, and that he had seen and conversed with two old men who belonged to the ships.... I immediately came to the conclusion that the two ships wrecked must be those under the command of the far-famed and lamented Count de la Perouse, as no other two European ships were lost or missing at so remote a period.

(10) Peter Dillon, Narrative and Successful Results of a Voyage in the South Seas (1829)

He had been at Vanikoro for about five years.... From the natives he learned that the two ships alluded to in this narrative ran on shore in the night on reefs some considerable distance from the land... some of the crew as escaped to land were murdered by the islanders. Their skulls were offered to the city in a temple where they remained many years, and were seen by many Tikopians. The narrator did not see the skulls himself but believed they were now mouldered away. The ship which had been wrecked at Paiow, after being on the reef, was driven into a good situation. The crew of these ships consisted of several hundred men. The ship stranded at Paiow was broken up to build a two-masted ship. The people, while employed building the two-masted ship, had a fence built round her of wooden palisading, within which they lived. There were several of the islanders friendly disposed towards them: others were very hostile, and kept up a continual war with the shipwrecked people. When the new vessel was built, all but two men embarked in her, and sailed away for their native country, after which they never returned.