La Pérousc

La Pérousc, JEAN FRANÇOIS DE GALAUP, COUNT DE, a French navigator, was born near Albi, in Languedoc, on 22d August 1741. He distinguished himself in the naval war against England (1778–83), especially by destroying the forts of the Hudson Bay Company. Two years after the conclusion of peace he was chosen to command an expedition of discovery sent out by the French government. He sailed in August 1785 with two ships, visited the north-west coast of America, explored the north-eastern coasts of Asia, where by sailing through La Pérouse Strait between Saghalien and Yezo he discovered that each of these was a separate island. In February 1788 he sailed from Botany Bay; after that all trace of him was lost. In 1826 it was fully ascertained by the English Captain Dillon that both of La Pérouse's ships had been wrecked in a storm on a coral-reef off Vanikoro, an island lying north of the New Hebrides. The account of the early portions of La Pérouse's voyage, prepared from journals sent home by him, was published under the title of Voyage autour du Monde (4 vols. Paris, 1797; new ed. in 1 vol. 1888).