French fluyt Étoile (1767)

The L' Étoile ( The Star dt ) was a French Fleute who participated along with the La Boudeuse under the command of Louis Antoine de Bougainville on his voyage around the world 1766-1769.

It was the first French expedition of its kind, L' Étoile was led by the captain Francois Chenard de la Giraudais (1727-1775) and served as a supply ship of the expedition. On board the botanist and physician Philibert Commerçon with his assistant Jeanne Baret disguised as a man, and the astronomer Pierre -Antoine Véron were ( 1736-1770 ).

The purpose of the expedition, it was:

• To seek new territories that were suitable for colonization
• To find a new route to China, so there could set up new trading posts, the French East India Company
• To find herbs that were suitable for cultivation in France.

The first two ships headed for the Falkland Islands to supply the small colony that had Bougainville settled a few years earlier there. When the L' Étoile in Patagonia wood came together, she sighted two British ships. It was the Dolphin and the Swallow, who were under the command of Samuel Wallis on the way to the South Seas. The meeting was full of mistrust - the ships did not give his identity. ( At a second meeting should occur on the way back on February 25, 1769 north of Ascension with the Swallow by Captain Philip Carteret. )

On April 2, 1768 Ships Tahiti saw before them, where Wallis was already landed on June 18, 1767. After a three- week stay, the ships sailed west to Samoa, the New Hebrides, to the Great Barrier Reef, then north to the Solomon Islands, New Britain and according to the Moluccas. In Batavia, they took a break to wait for the ships and to give the team a break. On March 16, 1769 were the ships back in Saint- Malo. Two years and four months had taken the trip.