His ships stopped in Chile, Hawaii, Alaska, California, Macau, the Philippines, Korea, Russia, Japan, Samoa, Tonga, and Australia before wrecking on the reefs of Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands.

[4] 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.

[6] 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.

[8] 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.

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".

Their objectives were geographic, scientific, ethnological, economic (looking for opportunities for whaling or fur trading), and political (the eventual establishment of French bases or colonial cooperation with their Spanish allies in the Philippines).

Furnished with a list produced by Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu, Monneron also bought scientific instruments from some of the largest English firms, particularly Ramsden.

The Montgolfier brothers gave to Laperouse two prototypes of the newly invented hot air balloons to carry on board the Astrolabe.

At the time, Bonaparte was interested in serving in the navy rather than army because of his proficiency in mathematics and artillery, both valued skills on warships.

Impeded (as Cook had been) by the continual mists enveloping the northwestern coast of America, he did not succeed any better in producing complete maps, though he managed to fill in some of the gaps.

Lapérouse and his 220 men left Brest on 1 August 1785,[16] rounded Cape Horn, and investigated the Spanish colonial government in the Captaincy General of Chile.

"[28] He made critical notes on the missionary treatment of the California indigenous peoples with the Indian Reductions at the Franciscan run missions.

Lapérouse again crossed the Pacific Ocean in 100 days, arriving at Macau, where he sold the furs acquired in Alaska, dividing the profits among his men.

He saw the island of Quelpart, in the Korean Peninsula (present-day Cheju in South Korea), which had been visited by Europeans only once before when a group of Dutchmen shipwrecked there in 1635.

[34] Just before he left, the Samoans attacked a group of his men at Massacre Bay, killing twelve, among whom were Lamanon and de Langle, commander of L'Astrolabe.

[37] There Lapérouse encountered a British convoy (known later as the "First Fleet") led by Captain Arthur Phillip RN, who was to establish the penal colony of New South Wales.

[43] Lapérouse also took the opportunity to send journals, charts and letters back to Europe, with the British merchant ship Alexander, which had come to Sydney as part of the First Fleet.

On 10 March,[37] after taking on sufficient wood and fresh water, the French expedition left New South Wales—bound for New Caledonia, Santa Cruz, the Solomons, the Louisiades, and the western and southern coasts of Australia.

While Lapérouse had reported in a letter from Port Jackson that he expected to be back in France by June 1789, neither he nor any members of his expedition were seen again by Europeans.

[46][47] In 1825, another French naval officer, Captain Hyacinthe de Bougainville, founded the Lapérouse Monument at Frenchman's Bay, near Receveur's grave.

[50] Franco-British relations deteriorated during the French Revolution, and unfounded rumours spread in France blaming the British for the tragedy which had occurred in the vicinity of the new colony.

[51] In 1825 Royal Navy Captain Thomas Manby brought a report, supported by presumptive evidence, that the spot where Lapérouse and his crew had perished was now ascertained.

[57][58][59] The 2008 expedition showed the commitment of France, in conjunction with the New Caledonian Association Salomon, to seek further answers about Lapérouse's mysterious fate.

On 16 September 2008, two French Navy ships set out for Vanikoro from Nouméa (New Caledonia), and arrived on 15 October, thus recreating a section of the final voyage of discovery undertaken more than 200 years earlier by Lapérouse.

[64] According to the islanders, some surviving sailors built a two-masted craft from the wreckage of Astrolabe and left in a westward direction about nine months later, but what happened to them is unknown.

[65] Sven Wahlroos, in his 1989 book, Mutiny and Romance in the South Seas, suggests that there was a narrowly missed chance to rescue one or more of the survivors in 1791.

Although some of the 14 had not joined the mutiny, all were imprisoned and shackled in a cramped "cage" built on the deck, which the men grimly nicknamed "Pandora's Box".

Edwards, single-minded in his search for Bounty and convinced that mutineers fearful of discovery would not be advertising their whereabouts, ignored the smoke signals and sailed on.

Wahlroos argues that the smoke signals were almost certainly a distress message sent by survivors of the Lapérouse expedition, which later evidence indicated were still alive on Vanikoro at that time—three years after Boussole and Astrolabe had foundered.

In the first chapter, "Economy", when writing about how indispensable it is to cultivate the habits of a businessman in anything one does, Thoreau describes these habits in a very long list, including ... taking advantage of the results of all exploring expeditions, using new passages and all improvements in navigation;—charts to be studied, the position of reefs and new lights and buoys to be ascertained, and ever, and ever, the logarithmic tables to be corrected, for by the error of some calculator the vessel often splits upon a rock that should have reached a friendly pier—there is the untold fate of La Perouse.Jon Appleton composed a full-length opera based on the final voyage of Lapérouse, Le Dernier Voyage de Jean-Gallup de la Perouse.