Voyages of the South Seas: in search of Terres Australes

While in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the English were exploring the Pacific Ocean and establishing a penal colony on the east coast of Australia the French  also sent scientific expeditions into the region. In this book Danielle Clode explores the voyages of a number of French explorers including Bougainville, Laperouse, dEntrecasteaux, Baudin, Freycinct and Dumont d'Urville between the years 1768-1828. The names of some of these explorers are commemorated as place names in Australia and and other countries in the region.

The author examines the reasons for the voyages and the discoveries made. Her writing provides different perspectives of a voyage by showing the significance of the voyage for different people. For example the first section on the explorer Laperouse imagines the thought of Louis XVI as he is about to be executed wondering about the fate of the explorer and his ship as news of the expedition was long overdue. The next person imagined in this section is the botanist Labillardiere  who wanted to amass a collection to rival the British botanist, Joseph Banks. The next person is d'Entrecasteaux who was commissioned with the task of searching for Laperouse in 1791. The journals of d'Entrecasteaux were completed and published, after his death by Rossel. There is also a section on the thoughts of Joseph Banks about the French expedions undertaken at the time. This style of writing by the author provides an interesting insight into French explorations in the Pacific, adding another layer to nineteenth century history in this region.