Solide expedition

Étienne Marchand (* 1755 in Grenada, † May 15, 1793 on Reunion Island ) was a French captain, businessman and sail around the world. He undertook the merchantman Solid second French Erdumseglung after Louis Antoine de Bougainville. Marchand complaining that the first discovery of some islands of the Marquesas for himself, but realized later that the Americans Joseph Ingraham he had anticipated.

Life

Étienne Marchand was born in 1755 on the island of Grenada, when it was still a French colony. He served in the French Merchant Navy and reached the rank of captain. On the return journey from Bengal, he met in 1788 on St. Helena British naval officer Nathaniel Portlock, who had sailed as a mate with James Cook on his third voyage ( 1776-1780 ). He had learned the ways of the fur trade in the North Pacific. Portlock was on his way back from a profitable trading expedition that had taken him from the Northwest Coast of America to China.

In France arrived, Marchand won the Jean and David Baux, wealthy Huguenot merchant from Marseille brothers, for his plan for a fur trade between North America and Western China. The brothers Baux upgraded in 1790 at his own expense a ship for a trading voyage in the North Pacific from.

The solid was a 23 meter long merchant ship of 300 tons, with copper. It was provided in Marseille with the necessary equipment and exchange and trade goods, since the ride of Sound was a purely commercial enterprise. The command of the ship was Étienne Marchand.

On December 14, 1790, the Solid Marseille drove off, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and sailed about Tenerife and the Cape Verde Islands in the South Atlantic. At the beginning of 1791 orbited the Solid Cape Horn and sailed without touching the South American mainland to the Marquesas, which came into view on 12 June 1791. On 14 June 1791, the Solid anchored in Madre de Dios Bay ( Bay of Vaitahu ) the island of Dominica ( Hiva Oa ), which had been discovered in 1595, the Spaniard Alvaro de Mendaña de Neyra for Europe. There Marchand held on two days to take on water and food. On 16 June 1791, the Solid direction sailed west- northwest and Marchand sighted on the horizon, an island that he (Ua Pou ) called Île Marchand. 172 He went into the Bay of Hakahau and a day later in the Bay of Hakahetau on land and it came to a peaceful encounter with the natives. On June 21, Marchand reached Ua Huka, to which he gave the name Île du Solid after his ship, and on 22 June was another island in sight, which he named after his ship owners Ile Baux ( Nuku Hiva ). 172 He went first in the Bay of Hakahau and a day later in the Bay of Hakahetau ashore and there was a peaceful encounter with the natives. On June 21, Marchand reached the island of Ua Huka, to which he gave the name Île du Solid after his ship, and on 22 June was another island in sight, which he named after his ship owners Ile Baux ( Nuku Hiva ). North West of it was a small island with vorgelagertem Felsriff that he baptized Les Deux Frères ( Motu Iti ) after the brothers Baux. Marchand discovered two more islands, which he named the Île mass ( Eiao ) and Ile Chanal ( Hatutu ) was, according to his officers Pierre mass and Prosper Chanal.

On June 24, 1791 Marchand sailed from the Marquesas from the northwest coast of North America. At the North American west coast, the Queen Charlotte Islands and Vancouver Iceland, he spent a few weeks in order to trade furs, which he brought about Hawaii to China. He reached Macao on 27 November 1791., Where he met the seriously ill Joseph Ingraham, the Claude Roblet, the ship's doctor of Solid treated. This Marchand realized that Ingraham had he discovered islands of the Marquesas sees just two months earlier. 134 About Mauritius drove Marchand back to France and came on August 14, 1792 in Toulon, after the solid had circumnavigate the earth once.

Although the trip was not profitable, because he could not sell his furs in China, was his five-volume travelogue, the Comte de Fleurieu posthumously published in 1798 in Paris, a commercial success. Marchand died on 15 May 1793 the island of Réunion.

Writings

• Voyage autour du monde, pendant les années 1790, 1791 et 1792 par Étienne Marchand ... Paris 1798 ( online at Google Books: Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3, Vol 4, Vol 5).