[LA PÉROUSE EXPEDITION] Handwritten document requesting additional equipment for the Astrolabe, written on board the ship prior to its departure from Brest, dated 10 June 1785.

Manuscript in ink on laid paper watermarked TM, 1 page, quarto (210 x 170 mm). [Brest], 'à bord [l'Astrolabe], le 10 juin 1785'. Headed 'pour L'astrolabe', and signed at the foot 'de Monti', the note comprises a short list of equipment that is required for the vessel: 'two rudder bars . a spike for the long ropes; three cramps for the hatch bars; three padlocks for the same; two dozen rings for the jib & sail lines [.]. The above-mentioned were not provided with the rest of the equipment' (our translation); two further signatures in the lower margin, 'Fraboulet' (previously an officer on the Astrée, commanded by La Pérouse in 1781) and 'Lelarge'(?); faint original folds, extremely well preserved. A tangible relic of theill-fated expedition of La Pérouse, 1785-1788. This previously unpublished document requesting various articles of equipment for L'Astrolabewas written on board the vessel by her second-in-command,French naval officer and navigator Anne-Georges-Augustin de Monti (1753-1788), a matter of weeks before the departure of the La Pérouse expedition from Brest. The objectives of this most famous of French expeditions, preparations for which had commenced in 1783 under the royal patronage of Louis XVI, were to carry out exploration and scientific research in the Pacific, and to investigate possibilities for the establishment of French colonies in the region. Under the command of Jean-François deGalaup La Pérouse, its two ships,L'Astrolabe and LaBoussole, departed Brest on 1 August 1785. The narrative of the voyage of LaPérouse in the Pacific in the years 1785-1788 remains one of the great mystery stories in maritime history. During the first two years of the expedition, intermittent reports of its progress were received in France; but in March 1788, when theAstrolabe andthe Boussole were observed sailing out of Botany Bay, it was to be the last time the ships were sighted by Europeans. A rescue mission under the command of d'Entrecasteaux was sent in search ofLaPérouse in 1791, but was unsuccessful. It would not be until 1826, when the English sandalwood trader Peter Dillon finally discovered relics fromL'Astrolabe andLa Boussoleon the island of Vanikoro in the Santa Cruz group in the Solomon Islands, that the tragic fate of the expedition was confirmed.…