He Sent For A Man Whose Name The Australian Reader Should Particularly
Note, Because He Had Much To Do With Three Important Discovery Voyages
Affecting Our History.
Charles Claret, Comte de Fleurieu, was the
principal geographer in France.
He was at this time director of ports
and arsenals. He had throughout his life been a keen student of
navigation, was a practical sailor, invented a marine chronometer which
was a great improvement on clocks hitherto existing, devised a method
of applying the metric system to the construction of marine charts, and
wrote several works on his favourite subject. A large book of his on
discoveries in Papua and the Solomon Islands is still of much
importance.
As a French writer - an expert in this field of knowledge - has written
of Fleurieu, "he it was who prepared nearly all the plans for naval
operations during the war of 1778, and the instructions for the
voyages of discovery - those of Laperouse and Dentrecasteaux - for
which Louis XVI had given general directions; and to whose wise and
well-informed advice is due in large part the utility derived from
them." It was chiefly because of Fleurieu's knowledge of geography that
the King chose him to be the tutor of the Dauphin; and in 1790 he
became Minister of Marine.
Louis XVI and Fleurieu talked the subject over together; and the
latter, at the King's command, drew up a long memorandum indicating the
parts of the globe where an expedition of discovery might most
profitably apply itself.
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