The Internet is a treasure trove for the early publications on the Uranie voyage but, like all good hidden treasures, there are many obstacles to their retrieval. Digital images of the volumes of the ‘Voyage autour du Monde’ can be found, but quality is very variable and not all volumes are easy to find. There are, moreover, some issues surrounding the contents of the various volumes and their the dates of publication.

Rose de Freycinet sent letters to her mother on every occasion when there was some prospect of their reaching France, up to and including the stay in Sydney. She continued to write after that, but we know this only because she mentioned sending a letter from the Falklands in her diary. A copy of a letter from her to her parennts-in-law sent at the same time has survived.

Despite the distances involved, there was clearly much coming and going between the islands of the central Carolines in the early 1800s, and their languages, or dialects, would be expected to be very similar also. Gaimard, however, provided two vocabularies for these islands and where they overlap they have major differences, even in such basic matters as the names of the numerals.

It being close to Christmas as I write, I began to think about how that was celebrated on board the Uranie. The fact is – hardly at all.

We know that Rose de Freycinet sent at least fifteen letters to her mother between Toulon and Sydney, because copies have survived. But were there any others, that were sent on their way and never reached their destination?

Rose de Freycinet was certainly no artist, to judge from the only drawing possibly by her that is readily accessible, but she did have many other qualities and abilities, as revealed in her letters to her mother.

Louis de Freycinet had an elder brother, Henri,, and the two brothers joined the French navy on the same day in 1794. On the face of it, Henri had the more successful career, administering three colonies in succession, reaching the rank of Rear Admiral and becoming a baron. But it is Louis who is better remembered.

Jean René Constant Quoy, senior surgeon on the Uranie, is something of a shadowy figure, but he did eventually write his memoirs.

When it came to writing the account of the voyage of the Uranie, Louis de Freycinet could not give any credit to his wife Rose, because she was not supposed to have been on board, But did she make any contribution to what he wrote?

Despite its remote location on the island of Rawak north of Waigeo, which is in turn north of the Bird’s Head of New Guinea, the place Louis de Freycinet chose for his ‘equatorial’ pendulum observations was, for the time and area, already remarkably well mapped. It was also known to have a good source of water nearby.