Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
terest in the seas and islands of the southern Atlantic and also the
old quest for a north-west passage. It was these objectives which
gave the impetus to a flurry of momentous voyages in the 1760s and
1770s, voyages which provided fresh fuel for Anglo-French rivalry
and sometimes brought the two nations close to war.
The first location of that rivalry was a troublesome group of is-
lands in the far South Atlantic known to the French as the Malou-
mes, to the Spaniards as the Malvinas and to the British as the Falk-
lands. The uninhabited isles had first appeared on European charts
in 1592, when John Davis discovered them. But it was not until the
second half of the eighteenth century that their potential importance
was appreciated. When the French and British governments determ-
ined to have their respective flags carried all over the broad Pacific
they realised that that task would be made much easier by the exist-
ence of a staging post where ships and men could be fully prepared
for the storms of the Horn or the Straits. The Falklands possessed in
abundance what the hostile Patagonian coast conspicuously lacked:
safe anchorages, anti-scorbutic plants, fresh water, fish and the meat
of seals, sea-lions and birds.
In 1763 a thirty-four-year-old French soldier proposed to his
government the founding of a settlement in the Falklands. Since
Louis Antoine de Bougainville offered to furnish this at his own ex-
pense, the ministers in Paris eagerly supported the scheme.
To the urbanity and dash of a French aristocrat and officer Bou-
gainville added a genuine passion for scientific discovery. Not only
had he served with distinction in Canada during the Seven Years
War, principally as ADC to General Montcalm, but he was also a fel-
low of the Royal Society. He had taken up a naval career in 1756
and the change of direction seems to have been largely inspired by
de Brosses, whose writings Bougainville greatly admired. Since the
French had been ousted from Canada and India they must seek new
lands whereon to plant the Bourbon
fleur de lys,
and in the search
