Rose’s booklist
On the 29th of April 1820, Rose de Freycinet was uncomfortably installed in the American three-master Mercury that was making heavy weather of the transit to Montevideo. She did, however, have some books to read.
Smith and Hall
When the Uranie arrived off Mauritius, Rose and Louis de Freycinet found an island that had, in the previous ten years, suffered many misfortunes. Amongst these was a feud between the acting governor ad the island’s chief judge.
Witness statements: the wreck of the Uranie
On 14 February 1820, the French corvette Uranie, in the last stages of what was planned to be a science-based circumnavigation of the globe, was entering Berkeley Sound in East Falkland when it struck a rock and began to sink. Four of the people aboard the corvette left written records of the event that survive to this day.
Joseph-Paul Gaimard – a life (work in progress)
Joseph-Paul Gaimard’s life was a complicated one. In1832 he transitioned from being an explorer of the Pacific tropics to becoming an explorer of the sub-Arctic. Tracking his lif in contemporary documnts is a large project, and far from complete.
The name’s Bond …. Alan Bond
On 26 September 2002, the London auction house Christie’s sold an archive described as ‘The Freycinet collection’. At its heart was a collection of early publications and original artwork from the 1817-20 voyage of the Uranie. But how did this collection, originating in France, come to be auctioned in London? That is a story that has its origins in Wesrern Australia.
Naming the Carolines
IOn the 12th of March 1819 the Uranie passed close to the island known to those onboard as Bartolomé, but to the people who actually lived there as Pulusuk. The following day, the corvette was in sight of the island of Alet on the Poluwat atoll and of Tamatam, Fanadik and Pollap on the Pollap atoll, just 50 km to the NNE. They did not stop at any of these places, but the proas of the Carolinians were easily able to keep up with them while mutually satisfactory trading was carried on. Given that this was the nearest that Gaimard came to actually visiting the Carolinians on their home islands, he wrote a surprising amount about them.