by Denis Combet
Brandon University
and Constance Cartmill
University of Manitoba
|
One of the greatest figures in the history of the French Navy, Count François Galaup de La Pérouse, is best known for leading a scientific voyage of discovery around the world in 1785–1788. King Louis XVI clearly was not mistaken when he chose one of the most talented officers in his fleet to complete an ambitious project worthy of the Enlightenment, for La Pérouse had participated in numerous campaigns, demonstrating his exceptional qualities as a sailor and a leader of men on the world’s high seas, especially during the American War of Independence and the successful missions to the Antilles and to Hudson Bay. This latter mission is the object of our focus here, not so much for its political and economic outcome as for its contribution to the advancement of scientific knowledge. The voyage to Hudson Bay gathered vital new information through a variety of means, such as day-to-day navigation, precise hydrographic measurements, new maps and charts, and astronomical readings; even the dangers associated with such a daring mission were a source of valuable insights, as were encounters with the indigenous peoples of Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait.
Jean Francois de Galaup, Comte de la Perouse, born near Albi, France on 22 August 1971, was lost at sea in 1788.
Source: Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, 1987/363-P-80-D/1.
The various accounts retracing the dramatic moments of this raid on the Hudson Bay posts assume the form of sea journals (including transcriptions of ship logs), military reports, letters and memoirs written by the officers of the three ships: La Pérouse, leader of the division and commander of the Sceptre; the Marquis André-Charles de La Jaille, commander of the Engageante, and the Chevalier de Delangle, commander of the Astrée, as well as his second-in-command, Pierre-Bruno-Jean la Monneraye. [1] These writings were meant to gather together all the information collected in the course of the expedition, which would then be submitted to the authorities of the French Navy. As such, they are part of a long tradition of travel narratives and are constrained to some extent by precise rhetorical codes as they are meant to convey very specific information of various types: military, geographic, hydrographic, and even ethnographic.
Undertaken at the end of the American War of Independence in 1782, and shrouded in secrecy, the expedition to Hudson Bay took on the appearance of a mission of discovery: indeed, the information gathered is often of a precarious and uncertain nature, whether pertaining to the navigational routes to be followed or the perils of sailing to be avoided. This is quite the opposite of what one would expect for a military venture requiring a maximum of information on the enemy’s defences. In fact, to a large extent the very secrecy of the mission detracted from its logistic preparations. In this regard, the Marquis de La Jaille, commander of the Engageante, observed in his journal:
We had no reports on the perils of sailing on those seas that we were to cross, or on the direction, the force and speed of the currents, or the appearance of land. We did not even know the position of the forts that we would have to attack, so that one could truthfully say that with few exceptions, we were going off to discover a country we knew in name only. [2]
The frustration of La Pérouse, exacerbated not only by a lack of precise information on the region in question, but also by difficult sailing conditions, often gives rise to hyperbolic turns of phrase:
Never has so little been known about a country one wished to attack, and perhaps never has there been an expedition in greater need of a pilot. [3]
I am not afraid to say that it would be impossible to undergo a more difficult campaign. [4]
However, the lack of detailed information about the region, together with the constant disruptions presented by hostile natural forces at work throughout the entire expedition, were in fact part and parcel of the accumulation of knowledge gathered in the course of navigation. The experience of sailing provided the basis for a type of knowledge that is spontaneous and empirical: its precarious and provisional nature was constantly laid bare by the simple act of observing or seeing. It is hardly surprising that knowledge accumulated throughout the expedition was closely linked with vision and the physical act of seeing, and that anything obstructing visibility (such as fog and ice) calls into question the status and the reliability of this knowledge (the French word “connaissance”, which normally means “knowledge”, often takes on the meaning of “site” in these texts, as in the phrase “prendre connaissance de”, meaning “to sight” or “catch sight of”).
We sighted several ice formations to the east, which are undoubtedly close to Monsielo Island, which we have not caught sight of, because the horizon is very foggy. [5]
In the afternoon, we thought we saw Barren Island, whose cape I had gradually perceived in the morning, but the fog prevented us from distinguishing anything. [6]
The success of the mission depended on one’s ability to decode nature’s signs, and to recognize which ones could serve as a warning to the sailors:
At daylight, I saw several pieces of ice passing along the shore, and I believed they could be the harbinger of an ice floe. [7]
[…] everything indicates that I am very near land, but I believe it is very low and that one must be quite close to it in order to see it. [8]
Around seven o’clock in the morning, a little snow fell, a warning that we must leave Hudson Bay. [9]
By exercising extreme caution, deduction and quick thinking, La Pérouse distinguished himself from the other members of his crew who seemed more susceptible to making common mistakes, as we see in this passage, which allows us to follow the navigator’s thought processes: [10]
Through the fog, we perceived a very elevated dark mass, and everyone firmly believed it was land. I immediately changed course and hailed the two frigates to do the same; they had also seen the same breakers and had not the slightest doubt that we were in a bay. Consequently I took the S.S.E. tack, but upon reflection, I remained convinced that the breakers which we had perceived spread out over an island of ice or ice floe, and that the dark mass which we had taken for land was a fog patch because, unless we had penetrated some bay, it was impossible for the coast to bear N.N.E. [11]
Some of the knowledge acquired through experience was directly related to the new spaces opened up by sailing in the northern regions, requiring on the part of the sailor the ability to adapt quickly, especially to the dangers of the ice. In addition to this instantaneous knowledge of the unpredictable nature of the sea, one had to take into account the technical aspects of navigation, an area in which considerable progress had been made by the end of the eighteenth century. The meeting point between longitude and latitude allowed for a much more accurate form of cartography, [12] the details pertaining to which are mentioned regularly throughout La Pérouse’s journal, all the more so given that such a technique made it possible to correct faulty measurements which hindered navigation.
The poor elevation made our position quite uncertain […] I was determined to maintain the ship’s course […] so as not to waste time; finally, at eleven o’clock there was a clear patch and I distinctly perceived Resolution Island whose S.E. headland bore N.E., with a correction of approximately five leagues […] If I had taken my compass point, it would have differed by 4d 10’, from which I was too far east. [13]
Hence the absolute necessity of making corrections at precisely the right moment, but also of having the good sense to reject false information which could lead to absolute disaster: “Seeing land made me realize that we had made a considerable error in longitude, and so I will no longer make use of it, but rather wait for an astronomically fixed compass point before correcting it.” [14]
In fact, La Pérouse and his engineers made it their duty to correct any information about Hudson Bay that was of a dubious nature, especially that provided by British maps, and the maps of Jacques-Nicolas Bellin: [15] “To guide us up to that point,” La Perouse commented in a letter, “we only had a few astronomically fixed points, included in the Practical Navigator, and based on which Monsieur de Mansuy and myself had drawn a map which we corrected when the fog allowed us to take some bearings by land.” [16] The preparation of new maps in the course of navigation went hand in hand with the correction of erroneous information, as we see in this excerpt from La Jaille’s journal:
Here we realized how unreliable are the maps found in the Neptunes [sea atlas] provided for the King’s vessels. They are far more dangerous than useful. If up until now we have not been able to obtain accurate maps of the Hudson Strait, we may have a slight hope that the one appearing after this campaign will be sufficiently accurate to ensure safe navigating. [17]
Another type of knowledge that we find in the sea journals and military reports has to do with factual history and specifically the manoeuvres for landing and surrounding the forts at Prince of Wales and York Factory. In this respect, the description of war movements that we find here belongs to a tradition of military narrative that can be traced as far back as Julius Caesar’s War Commentaries; the discernment of the field where eventual battles would take place is integral to the planning of strategies and the resulting initiatives undertaken. Knowledge of a tactical nature is thus envisaged in connection with military actions: the description of the terrain is detailed only insofar as it serves to explain them. The squadron leader’s description of Fort Prince of Wales belongs to this category of military narrative:
It was a square of approximately […] feet, each side constructed in the most solid manner, in freestone, with 42 cannons of large calibre placed on top, surrounded by very high fences, but which did not appear to be dug very deeply into the ground. It was located on the seashore, at the mouth of the Churchill River, one side facing the sea, the other facing the river, the last two facing land running alongside the only avenues, which allowed access to the enemy. [18]
Similarly, the Nelson and Hayes Rivers, which come together at Fort York (York Factory), are described in relation to their strategic location and the French plan of attack:
Hayes Island where Fort York is situated is at the mouth of a large river, which it divides into two branches; the one before the fort is called Hayes River, the other is Nelson River. We knew that all the means of defense were on Hayes River […] That River, incidentally, is full of shoals, the currents are very rough, the tide rises and falls with extraordinary speed. Our launches could be lying high and dry within cannon reach of the fort […] it was important for us not to make it so easy for an enemy that is formidable under normal circumstances. Consequently we decided on Nelson River, knowing full well that our troops would have to march approximately four leagues, but all the batteries on the Hayes River were positioned from the rear and were becoming useless. [19]
The crossing of the marshlands and the small forest leading to Fort York, which took place 21–23 August, provides one of the longest descriptions of the military campaign, its length undoubtedly a reflection of the difficulties and dangers encountered. Not only does this description underline the connection between military events and the geography of the location, it also allows us to better understand the way in which maps and charts would be drawn up after the campaign. Here, the erroneous map provided by the English prisoners of Prince of Wales Fort was quickly replaced by a new map, which, later on, would be carefully replicated by the engineer Monsieur de Mansuy:
During this time Monsieur de Rostaing himself had searched the wood in vain for the supposed path of the surroundings, which only exists on the map found at Churchill. […] Finally, we decided to have the troops march towards the upper river by following the meadow and getting as near as possible to the wood, which was surrounded by a marsh so deep that they sank in it up to their waist. […] Finally, I proposed that we take the map and forge ahead ourselves across the island, using a compass. […] Monsieur de Mansuy went to work and that same day he penetrated one league, which is about half of the route, but midway he encountered a marshy wood in which they sank up to their knees. [20]
In this respect, the expedition to Hudson Bay, beyond providing more reliable navigation charts, also produced detailed cartographic data that would be used to make precise maps of the forts and their surrounding landscapes. [21]
A modern illustration of Prince of Wales Fort as it would have looked in the eighteenth century.
Source: Parks Canada
Finally, there are other kinds of knowledge related to navigation and the military campaign that touch on important aspects of the life of the sailors, which concerned La Pérouse a great deal—hygiene first and foremost, since the ship captain had to confront the ravages of scurvy. As Michel Vergé-Franceschi has pointed out, one of the essential preoccupations of navy authorities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the health and well-being of their crews, without which nothing could be accomplished at sea. Unlike the seventeenth century, the eighteenth century saw disease claim more lives at sea than warfare. [22] Not surprisingly, La Pérouse’s journal contains many references to this subject, even early on in the expedition: “Disease has advanced an at extraordinary rate on board; I have had 80 sick men since leaving the Cape, and three men have died. However, I have maintained the utmost cleanliness on board: each day everything is turned upside-down; the tween deck, which has been coated with whitewash, is aromatized.” [23] The situation worsened in the final days of the expedition as the division made its way back to France:
The situation aboard my vessel is becoming more and more critical, I have been forced to cut back on the water rations of 760 men, 300 of whom are sick, to about two and a half casks; we have soup only once or twice a week; there are not even 20 sailors left on board: all are stricken with scurvy, to such an extent that they are dead or unable to get out of bed. All that remains of my crew are a few soldiers, ship’s boys, servants […] [24]
The deplorable condition of the crewmembers, which rapidly deteriorated in a very short time, provides a striking contrast to the overall success of the mission. The health problems, moreover, were not limited to the sailors; they were also affecting the welfare the officers, in spite of the fact that they belonged to the nobility. As the Marquis de la Jaille wrote in a letter to the minister of Marine:
The loss of men, My Lord, is considerable in such difficult campaigns. I have already lost 15 to scurvy and I may possibly lose half of the 86 who at the present moment are on the stretchers. I am not spared, My Lord, from the ills plaguing the other men, and I often feel that being at sea for seven consecutive years is seriously harmful to the health. But I forget my suffering in order to occupy myself with ways of deserving the King’s graces and your interest. [25]
The capture of Prince of Wales Fort and contact with the prisoners also allowed the French to gather information on the activities of the British merchants, the links they established with Aboriginals, the prices of trading goods and the duties assigned to the employees of the company. La Jaille’s enumeration of articles and their worth highlight the economic aspect of the English trade, about which any information was of great interest to the French:
I learned from the fort’s surgeon whom I brought aboard my frigate that:
one gun was worth 8 beaver skins
one handful of game lead, 2 skins
one bottle of half-rum, half-water, 2 skins
one small mirror, 2 skins
one comb, 1 skin
one ramrod, one skinFiles and small axes, copper pots of various sizes were also of great value. One may well judge from this account the profits that the company must have been making. Inland there is a kind of bull, very large, whose skin is so esteemed in England that in 1752 the Hudson Company hired hunters for Fort Prince of Wales in order to obtain a greater quantity of these animals’ skins; I know nothings else of them, other than what the surgeon told me, whom I have just quoted. [26]
The impressive architectural design of the fort was painstakingly copied by the expedition’s engineers. However, Samuel Hearne was the source of the most valuable information that the French gleaned from this mission:
The commander made an exceedingly curious land trek from the factory, located in 59 degrees as far as 72 degrees’ latitude. He was accompanied by forty Indians and subsisted thanks to their hunting for the nine years that the voyage lasted. He was finally stopped by impenetrable ice which he encountered everywhere, and he assuaged the fears of the Hudson Company regarding the discovery of the passage to the North West which has been the ambition of many a traveler. [27]
This revelation was especially important in that it seemed to put an end, once and for all, to the dream of the Northwest Passage. As Philippe Bonnichon has pointed out, even if La Pérouse could not come up with any new knowledge on this particular point, one of the tasks assigned to him in his later voyage of circumnavigation appears complementary to the 1782 expedition: exploring the northern coast of the Pacific, where he was to determine if there was not some gulf or river providing a passage to the Atlantic, through Hudson Bay. [28]
A page from La Pérouse’s journal, 1782.
Source: Archives nationales de France
In any case, the reception of this new geographical data seems to have been of greater interest to La Pérouse than the immediate political context, even if he was dutybound to place national interests above scientific progress, for he sent Hearne and the other prisoners back to England on the condition that the British explorer commit himself to publishing his discoveries. In spite of La Pérouse’s insistence, however, British interests outweighed the dissemination of scientific discoveries, a major factor in the delay of the publication of Hearne’s manuscript until 1795. [29] Certainly, in this instance knowledge acquired from the enemy was carefully preserved in the spirit of tolerance and universality, defining characteristics of the Enlightenment. Moreover, La Pérouse shared the limited supplies he had for his men with his enemies, a gesture that earned the gratitude of the English. Unfortunately, his superiors did not share this view, but rather criticized his generosity, as we can surmise in this letter dated 24 May 1783, in which the leader of the expedition attempted to justify his actions:
The political circumstances require that I clarify anew my expedition to Hudson Bay. I have the honour of informing you that I have been meticulously heedful of all of the particular effects, to such an extent that I sacrificed some belonging to the King in order to give them to one hundred of the prisoners. The related accounts rendered by the governor of Fort York and which may be found in all of the English gazettes have given me the highest opinion concerning his love of truth. I had neither water nor supplies, I shared with him what I had left, and in this sharing I consulted my heart more than my needs. He was moved by this and shed some tears when he parted with me. […] I therefore was able to dispose of them, and I dare say there is not a single citizen in England who is not convinced that I had the right to do so, and that I did so with all the moderation which humanity required of me. [30]
Certainly, this letter tells us much about the exceptional character of La Pérouse who was known for his humane qualities, however, such an attitude was not uncommon among the officers of the navy who had been educated at the French Royal Navy Academy. A similar attitude of tolerance and openness came into play when these Europeans made contact with the indigenous peoples of Hudson Bay.
While the sea journals, ship logs, and even military reports contain a good deal of information related to sailing and military manoeuvres, some of these texts reveal a different kind of knowledge gathering, one that concerns the inhabitants of the region. Observations of First Nations peoples are filtered through the use of analogy, as we see in this description by La Jaille of the clothing worn by Eskimos and the boats they use, which he tries to relate to comparable European items:
We obtained from them seal skins, polar bear skins, different species of water birds and some quadrupeds that were unknown to us, and all as well cured as anything that can be done in Europe. […] Their clothing, made of sealskins, consists of an outer garment bearing a hood similar to that worn by the Capuchin friars to cover their heads. They are sewn with admirable skill, using guts as fine as our thinnest threads. […] The women’s canoes are constructed with a few timbers fastened to each other with fish guts. They are similar in shape to our riverboats, which are greatly widened at the bow. [31]
There are also analogies regarding animals and sea state: “We killed several of these birds, which tasted better to me than the fine ducks of Europe.[…] On the 22nd, winds from the southeast, the weather fine and warm, and the sea as calm as a millpond.” [32] While conveying descriptions of different Aboriginal peoples of the region, which were provided by Samuel Hearne, the British governor of Prince of Wales Fort, La Jaille makes this comment: “The difference between them is no greater than that which one notices in France between a man from one province and the inhabitant of another.” [33] On the one hand, we may be tempted to admire such comments as an example of the values of universality, integral to the Enlightenment, since new information is presented through a comparative and objective lens. On the other hand, such remarks reflect a well-known tendency to simplify the diversity of the world, in order to better control it; in other words, it is much easier to assimilate the recently discovered unknown, by framing it in more familiar terms or concepts.
The advancement of ethnographic knowledge—clearly for the purposes of trade and colonization—is evident in the description of the Eskimos encountered by the French sailors; in La Pérouse’s journal (which more closely resembles a ship log), such passages are rather brief and concise, whereas La Jaille’s journal offers a much more detailed description. La Pérouse employs ellipsis, for instance, while alluding to the previously published account of the Irish explorer Henry Ellis:
At three o’clock in the morning, only two leagues from the coast, I distinctly heard very loud shouts. The dead calm, together perhaps with the state of the air and the sharp voices of the Indians, allowed me to hear them from that distance. Soon after we saw several canoes making their way toward us. The traveler is so true in what he reports about the Eskimos of the Hudson Strait, that I can only repeat here what he says of that people in his book, more constant than the Europeans in their customs. Certainly there has been no change since 1746. [34]
La Pérouse seems to have little room for ethnographic elucidation, limiting his reports to concise, factual statements. Such is the case of the summary narrative of the one welcome reserved for the French:
It is because of some superstitious belief that the Indians would not permit our hunters to come inside their dwelling and they said a kind of prayer to purify it, but the meeting was nonetheless convivial; they agreed to dance and received as payment few copper buttons. The two Indian women took care not to hold back their gratitude, but our officers lacked courage. [35]
Interestingly, we find a good deal more information in La Jaille’s version of the same event, which should be read in its entirety:
There they found a tent inhabited by an Indian man and woman, the latter of whom was not too unattractive. The officers conveyed a desire to go into the tent. The Indian man refused entry and tried to close the tent, when someone raised one of the pegs without him noticing, only to find some raw meat, some blood that had been shed and a little fire. The Eskimo having thus been surprised took on an angry countenance and threw himself down on his knees, raised his eyes and his hands to the sky and uttered several words that were not understood; but it seemed from his expression that he wished to purify his retreat of the shame that it had just endured. Once the prayer was finished, if that’s what it was, he reverted to his cheerful demeanor and treated the visitors well enough to offer them his wife with the most demonstrative of signs; but they, far from taking advantage of their right to his hospitality, hurried to give him everything they had that could be useful to the Indians. [36]
This scene, described in all three accounts, points to the kind of fundamental cultural misunderstanding which must have occurred on a regular basis in early encounters between Europeans and indigenous peoples, those of the Hudson Bay region and elsewhere. Such incomprehension is evident in the descriptions of the phenomenon of the “drinkers of blood,” [37] first in La Pérouse’s journal: “It seems in general that the people fish much more than they hunt, and that whale is their main sustenance: they eat the flesh raw and they drink the oil with as much relish as a European drinking fine wine.” [38] By way of comparison, La Jaille’s account is slightly more detailed: “They are bloodthirsty and eat the animals they catch completely raw, and whose blood they suck as greedily as our sailors drink brandy. They have a bizarre way of making themselves bleed in order to drink their own blood.” [39] In both texts, are found similar examples of assimilation through the use of comparison, but in the second account, there is a greater tendency to include piquant details, which in some instances, it would appear, border on fiction or myth. [40]
The officers often express doubts as they face the unknown or the inexplicable, yet even then, they suggest an open-mindedness in which the universality of human nature is evoked. Such an attitude may not seem unusual today, but one must keep in mind that this was a time when indigenous peoples were traditionally referred to as “savages” (even in these texts, they are always referred to as “sauvages”, even though we have opted to translate that word as “Indians”), which implied that they were uncivilized and therefore less human than Europeans. La Jaille juxtaposed several examples of behaviour which would be out of place in his own land with examples that would be familiar to his countrymen: for instance, immediately after commenting on two aboriginal women whose “gaiety […] would be considered excessive and intolerable in France,” he described an encounter with a mother who refuses to give up her child, and in so doing unquestionably communicates in the universal language of maternal love:
I proposed that one of them sell me her child; at first she thought I meant the pouch in which he was confined, and she immediately stripped naked, but when she was made to understand that it was her child for whom I wanted to trade, she took him in her arms, caressed him while making signs with her head and her hand that she did not wish to give him away. [41]
Did La Jaille seriously want to buy this child, or was he merely testing the woman? (Interestingly, he does not say, suggesting that the attitudes of Europeans at the time are at times as strange to us today as the attitudes of the indigenous peoples must have been to them.) Another passage describing the modesty and virtue of a young aboriginal woman employs this same technique of juxtaposition:
The women are not the least reserved. They even seem to derive satisfaction from the pleasures of immodesty. However, I have reason to believe that this is not a general vice, and here is the proof. One of these women who appeared no older than 17 or 18 years of age and who, although not pretty, had certain charms, especially for sailors, attracted looks from several young men. One of them mean to take certain liberties with her; she defended herself, as much as the most recalcitrant virtue would allow. Several men and women, witnesses to this scene as well as myself, did not appear to pay it any notice, but I put a stop to it by an authority that this child seemed to favour with a nod in my direction and a pleasant smile. [42]
One cannot help but notice a measure of selfaggrandizement in the narrator’s attempt to portray himself as the noble defender of the vulnerable young woman who fell victim to the churlish behaviour of the lower-class Frenchmen.
In spite of the lack of understanding between the two peoples, La Jaille recounted with a certain emotion another revealing scene which laid bare the disarray and panic which set in among the indigenous people upon the realization that the British people they had come to know, and with whom they had forged close ties, were being forced to abandon them:
On the 13th I lay anchor a half-league from the fort where the Indians had hoisted a kind of banderole. […] I brought the English surgeon along with me to serve as an interpreter of the Indians; they recognized him. They surrounded him and told him, expressing their sadness: “So we are to have no more powder or lead.” I hired two of these Indians who spoke English to come aboard my ship where, while giving them munitions, I assured them of the King’s intention that no harm be done to them. The ease with which they obtain firearms has made them neglect the use of the bow. I only saw a single one in the hands of these Indians whose kindly air made me sensitive to their hardships. [43]
And in his final report on the destruction of the British posts, La Pérouse also revealed his basic philanthropy in a final gesture of goodwill towards the Aboriginals, leaving one to speculate whether he was attempting to compensate, if only symbolically, not merely for the French raid on the Hudson Bay posts, which obviously disrupted their lives, but also for the presence of Europeans in general, which in the long run had had a negative impact on their way of life. As he wrote in his final report:
Following the King’s orders, we burned everything, except for a few beaver and other peltries, which we loaded onto the Astrée. We gave the Indians everything hey wanted to carry away, especially powder and lead. These hunting peoples – their trade with Europeans has made them neglect the use of the bow, which they no longer know how to use, and they are exposed to death by starvation, if they come to lack munitions. We supplied them with some, which will last a while, but humanity compels me to feel moved by the fate that awaits them, having no time to spare in completing our operations in Hudson Bay. [44]
Beyond the recognition of the drama that was part of the early encounters between Europeans and First Nations, this passage allows us to appreciate the mindset of the officers of the French navy under Louis XVI. It seems difficult to find fault with the attitudes of La Pérouse and that of his officers La Monneraye and La Jaille, as displayed throughout the expedition.
The eighteenth century was an important turning point for geographical discoveries, but it was also an intense period for the acquisition of new scientific knowledge, often a result of sea exploration. By the end of the Seven Years’ War, there were in fact precise scientific ambitions tied into the exploration projects of the French and British navies. As Étienne Taillemite has pointed out, cooperation at the international level was beginning to take place at this time, which helped accelerate scientific progress in not only the area of navigation but also in the human and natural sciences. Contact with different civilizations provided impetus for ethnology and anthropology, while increased knowledge in the natural sciences would provide the means for the great scientific theories of the following century. [45] The military expeditions served as the test bed for scientific voyages—such was the case of La Pérouse’s expedition to Hudson Bay, which laid the groundwork for his 1785 voyage of circumnavigation. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that in the sea journals of individuals undertaking a mission under unimaginably difficult sailing conditions; we find an unusually diverse accumulation of knowledge. Beyond the immediate results that the officers of that expedition brought back and presented to their superiors (journals, maps, charts, spoils of war), the written record of a voyage that oscillated between military exercise and scientific project, allows the reader to discover and become familiar with a grandiose element which is restrained by a rhetorical code to which the officers had to adhere, but which was nonetheless an integral part of their experience: the sea, magnificent or menacing, but ever-present.
1. We were unable to locate Delangle’s journal. The account by his second-in-command, La Monneraye, was written several years after the events described, and was most recently edited by Philippe Bonnichon in Pierre-Bruno-Jean de la Monneraye, Souvenirs de 1760 à 1791. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1998. For the purposes of this study, we will be primarily interested in the unpublished accounts of La Pérouse and La Jaille, which we have translated, and which were written much closer to the events of the 1782 expedition. There exists another journal from this expedition, written by François- Guillaume de Vienne, who participated in Bougainville’s voyage of circumnavigation aboard the Boudeuse: it is a ship’s log from the expedition, restricted to information on the sea state and weather conditions, although it does contain a few, brief comments on indigenous peoples.
2. “Synopsis of the campaign of the division under the orders of Monsieur de Lapérouse attacking the English establishments on Hudson Bay, North America”, by the Marquis de La Jaille, the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, Archives of Manitoba, 1/105, 4 M 37, folio 91. Another, slightly longer version of this journal is located in the National Archives in Paris, France. Fonds de la Marine, 3 JJ 68, no 23.
3. “Journal of the Sceptre campaign commanded by Monsieur de Lapérouse, ship captain with the frigates the Astrée and the Engageante under his command”, Archives nationales, Paris, France, Fonds Lapérouse, 489 AP1, Aug. 8–9, 1782, p. 54.
4. Ibid., 4–5 August 1782, p. 50.
5. Ibid., 29–30 July 1782, p. 44.
6. Ibid., 30–31 July 1782, p. 45.
7. Ibid., 6–7 August 1782, p. 52.
8. Ibid., 7–8 August 1782, p. 53.
9. Ibid., 30–31 August 1782, p. 79.
10. As Pierre Berthiaume has demonstrated, the nautical journal constitutes a transcription of the intellect, in that it closely follows the thought processes of the navigator. L’Aventure Américaine au XVIIIe siècle. Du voyage à l’écriture. Ottawa: Les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1990, p. 83.
11. “Journal of the Sceptre campaign”, op. cit., 6–7 July 1782, p. 18–19.
12. Michel Vergé-Franscheschi, La Marine française au XVIIIe siècle, Les espaces maritimes, Guerre-Administration-Exploration, Paris: Sedes, 1996, p. 338–343.
13. “Journal of the Sceptre campaign”, op. cit., Continuation of 17–18 July 1782, p. 28.
14. Ibid., Continuation of 13–14 July 1782, p. 24. In yet another passage, we see that in his journal La Pérouse keeps a fascinating record, not only of errors but also of what may be considered navigational hypercorrections: “this direction should have proved to me that I mistook Nottingham Island for Diggs Island, but convinced that my map was wrong, and not trusting it in the least, I persevered in my error and set course to sail between the two islands” 28–29 July 1782, p. 43.
15. Philippe Bonnichon discusses the inaccuracies of Bellin’s maps in Des Cannibales aux castors, les découvertes françaises de l’Amérique (1503–1788). Paris: France Empire, 1994, p. 303–304. Étienne Taillemite describes the revolution in naval cartography in Histoire ignorée de la Marine française. Paris: Perrin, 2003, p. 265–268.
16. Letter by Lapérouse on the attack on Fort Prince of Wales, 1782, the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, Archives of Manitoba, 1/105, 4 M 37, folio 85.
17. “Synopsis of the campaign of the division under the orders of Monsieur de Lapérouse”, op. cit., folio 92 bis-93.
18. “Journal of the Sceptre campaign”, op. cit., 8–9 August 1782, p. 55.
19. Letter by Lapérouse on the attack on Fort Prince of Wales, 1782, op. cit., folio 86.
20. “Journal of the Sceptre campaign”, op. cit., 21–22 August and 22–23, 1782, p. 70–71.
21. In fact, they are located today at the Archives des colonies at Aix-en- Provence and at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the following maps, for example, are located in Aix-en-Provence, Archives des colonies, Fonds ministériels, dépôt des fortifications: Fort York, col. II/5PFB/557; the map of the marshlands which the king’s troops had to cross, II/5PFB/558; Fort Prince of Wales, II/5PFB/559 and II/5PFB/560.
22. Michel Vergé-Fresceschi, op. cit., p. 277.
23. “Journal of the Sceptre campaign”, op. cit., 6–7 June 1782, p. 6. A few lines later, Lapérouse adds: “In the morning, my master carpenter died and I see to my chagrin disease spreading on board” Ibid., p. 7.
24. Ibid., 1–2 October 1782, p. 92.
25. Letter from the Marquis de La Jaille, 10 September 1782.
26. “Synopsis of the campaign of the division under the orders of Monsieur de Lapérouse”, op. cit., folio 94 bis.
27. Ibid., folio 94 bis. Lapérouse also mentions his meeting with Samuel Hearne: “The Governor, Monsieur Hearne, has been stationed here for 16 years. He appeared an educated man and spoke the language of the Indians perfectly. Moreover, he had made a three-year voyage in the north as far as 72 degrees; he assured me that the N.W. passage through Hudson Bay did not exist, and that he had made sure of this during his treks.” “Journal of the Sceptre campaign”, op. cit., 8–9 August 1782, p. 57.
28. Philippe Bonnichon, Pierre-Bruno-Jean de la Monneraye, Souvenirs de 1760 à 1791, op. cit., p. 58.
29. Ibid., p. 220.
30. Archives nationales, Fonds de la Marine, B4 266, folio 11. Philippe Bonnichon also alludes to this letter. Pierre-Bruno-Jean de la Monneraye, op. cit., p. 215, note 3.
31. “Synopsis of the campaign of the division under the orders of Monsieur de Lapérouse”, op. cit., folio 93. We find a similar type of comparison in Lapérouse’s journal: “The islands of ice are much larger than those we have observed before, and I am not afraid to say that it appeared to me that some of them covered as much surface as the city of Brest.” “Journal of the Sceptre campaign”, op. cit., Continuation of 12–13 July 1782, p. 23.
32. “Synopsis of the campaign of the division under the orders of Monsieur de Lapérouse”, op. cit., folio 93.
33. Ibid., folio 91.
34. “Journal of the Sceptre campaign”, op. cit., Continuation of 20–21 July 1782, p. 31. Ellis’ book Voyage Made to Hudson’s Bay in 1746 had been published in 1748; the French translation was available in 1749.
35. Ibid., Continuation of 23–24 July, p. 39.
36. “Synopsis of the campaign of the division under the orders of Monsieur de Lapérouse”, op. cit., folio 92 bis. La Monneraye’s version of this meeting is just as evocative and even more detailed; his account of events in which he participated often lends impetus to philosophical reflections on nature and society. Certainly hindsight plays a role in the manner in which he describes events that had taken place thirty years earlier: a systematic overview of his life, his narrative is more analytical as the older man recalls his younger days. Souvenirs de 1760 à 1791, op. cit., p. 207–210.
37. La Monneraye, in his account written several years later, questions the firmly held beliefs of his day regarding the anthropophagy of the Eskimos, by suggesting that the blood apparently streaming from their noses came from the whale blubber which they consumed. Souvenirs de 1760 à 1791, op. cit., p. 203–205.
38. “Journal of the Sceptre campaign”, op. cit., Continuation of 19–29 July 1782, p. 33.
39. “Synopsis of the campaign of the division under the orders of Monsieur de Lapérouse”, op. cit., folio 91.
40. As James Kelly recently noted, “whereas a ship’s log fulfills a specific utilitarian function, a sea journal is a subjective record containing, in Robert Foulke’s words, ‘all the defining characteristics of narratives, including plot’ […] The moment the log is improvised as narrative, it mutates and the sea journal is born.” “Bordering on Fact in Early Eighteenth-Century Sea Journals” in Dan Doll and Jessica Munns ed., Recording and Reordering: Essays on the Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Diary and Journal, Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2006, p. 161. Kelly is quoting from Robert Foulke’s The Sea Voyage Narrative. New York: Twayne, 1997, p. 74. As we have already seen, this distinction between “ship’s log” and “sea journal” can help explain, at least to a certain extent, some of the major differences we find between Lapérouse’s journal—even if it is undoubtedly a transcription of his original log—and that of his subordinate, La Jaille.
41. “Synopsis of the campaign of the division under the orders of Monsieur de Lapérouse”, op. cit., folio 91. In the very next sentence, more difficult to comment upon because of its elliptical and ambiguous nature as hearsay, suggests polygamous practices: “I have heard it said that the men prostitute their women, in the belief that each man was to produce his counterpart, not only physically but even morally, so that a captain must produce a captain, etc.” (Ibid., folio 91.)
42. Ibid., folio 91. If La Jaille’s sailors were attracted to aboriginal women, they were evidently not the only ones, as he euphemistically refers to the existence of a Métis nation already in existence: “their complexion is generally dark. However some of them are quite white, which I attribute to the Englishmen’s keeping company with their women.” Ibid., folio 94 bis.
43. Ibid., folio 95.
44. Letter by Lapérouse on the attack on Fort Prince of Wales, 1782, op. cit., folio 86.
45. Étienne Taillemite, op. cit., p. 257.
Page revised: 24 November 2014
