Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
7
FILLING IN THE GAPS
Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition may claim to have
been the first genuinely scientific voyage of circumnavigation. The
scholarly Frenchman set out with the deliberate objective of making
reliable charts of those parts of the Pacific through which he passed,
collecting plants, and trying to master the accurate measurement of
longitude. But he did not set out on a pure and disinterested quest
for truth. He was following the principles laid down by de Brosses
for the French colonisation of distant lands. The charts he drew up
were for the benefit of his countrymen who would follow after, es-
tablishing settlements, as he had done in the Falklands. The plants
he collected were nutmegs and cloves which his superiors wanted to
try growing on IÎle de France (Mauritius). This Indian Ocean island
had been ruled by the French East India Company for half a century
but the government in Paris had now decided to bring it directly un-
der crown control. While Bougainville was still on his outward voy-
age the new governor arrived at IÎle de France and began transform-
ing what was no more than a port of call into a thriving colony whose
economy was based on plantation agriculture. His objective was to
grow spices there and thus make France independent of Dutch sup-
plies from the Moluccas. Bougainville was charged, secretly of course,
with obtaining plant specimens for preliminary tests. But the task to
which the scientist-captain devoted most energy was experimenting
on the measurement of longitude.
The correct calculation of longitude was the philosopher's stone
sought by hundreds of eighteenth-century astronomers, mathem-
aticians, inventors and cranks. So important was it that, in 1713, the
British government offered the staggering sum of £20,000
*
to the
