1-218-516 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Jean Francois Galaup, comte de La Perouse, French naval officer and explorer, (1886). La Perouse (1741-c1788) commanded a French expedition to explore the Pacific which set out in 1785. In 1788 he arrived with the surviving members of the expedition at Botany Bay where the British had recently established their first colony in Australia. La Perouse sent his journals back to Europe on a British ship before acquiring supplies of wood and fresh water and resuming his voyage. Neither he nor any of the members of the expedition were ever seen again. Wood engraving from 'Picturesque Atlas of Australasia, Vol I', by Andrew Garran, illustrated under the supervision of Frederic B Schell, (Picturesque Atlas Publishing Co, 1886).