|
Article Excerpt
One of the greatest figures in the history of the French Navy, Count Francois Galaup de La Perouse, is best known for leading a scientific voyage of discovery around the world in 1785-1788. King Louis XVI clearly was not mistaken when he chose one of the most talented officers in his fleet to complete an ambitious project worthy of the Enlightenment, for La Perouse had participated in numerous campaigns, demonstrating his exceptional qualities as a sailor and a leader of men on the world's high seas, especially during the American War of Independence and the successful missions to the Antilles and to Hudson Bay. This latter mission is the object of our focus here, not so much for its political and economic outcome as for its contribution to the advancement of scientific knowledge. The voyage to Hudson Bay gathered vital new information through a variety of means, such as day-to-day navigation, precise hydrographic measurements, new maps and charts, and astronomical readings; even the dangers associated with such a daring mission were a source of valuable insights, as were encounters with the indigenous peoples of Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The various accounts retracing the dramatic moments of this raid on the Hudson Bay posts assume the form of sea journals (including transcriptions of ship logs), military reports, letters and memoirs written by the officers of the three ships: La Perouse, leader of the division and commander of the Sceptre; the Marquis Andre-Charles de La Jaille, commander of the Engageante, and the Chevalier de Delangle, commander of the Astree, as well as his second-in-command, Pierre-Bruno-Jean la Monneraye. (1) These writings were meant to gather together all the information collected in the course of the expedition, which would then be submitted to the authorities of the French Navy. As such, they are part of a long tradition of travel narratives and are constrained to some extent by precise rhetorical codes as they are meant to convey very specific information of various types: military, geographic, hydrographic, and even ethnographic.
Redrawing the Maps
Undertaken at the end of the American War of Independence in 1782, and shrouded in secrecy, the expedition to Hudson Bay took on the appearance of a mission of discovery: indeed, the information gathered is often of a precarious and uncertain nature, whether pertaining to the navigational routes to be followed or the perils of sailing to be avoided. This is quite the opposite of what one would expect for a military venture requiring a maximum of information on the enemy's defences. In fact, to a large extent the very secrecy of the mission detracted from its logistic preparations. In this regard, the Marquis de La Jaille, commander of the Engageante, observed in his journal:
We had no reports on the perils of sailing on those seas that we were to cross, or on the direction, the force and speed of the currents, or the appearance of land. We did not even know the position of the forts that we would have to attack, so that one could truthfully say that with few exceptions, we were going off to discover a country we knew in name only. (2)
The frustration of La Perouse, exacerbated not only by a lack of precise information on the region in question, but also by difficult sailing conditions, often gives rise to hyperbolic turns of phrase:
Never has so little been known about a country one wished to attack, and perhaps never has there been an expedition in greater need of a pilot. (3)
I am not afraid to say that it would be impossible to undergo a more difficult campaign. (4)
However, the lack of detailed information about the region, together with the constant disruptions presented by hostile natural forces at work throughout the entire expedition, were in fact part and parcel of the accumulation of knowledge gathered in the course of navigation. The experience of sailing provided the basis for a type of knowledge that is spontaneous and empirical: its precarious and provisional nature was constantly laid bare by the simple act of observing or seeing. It is hardly surprising that knowledge accumulated throughout the expedition was closely linked with vision and the physical act of seeing, and that anything obstructing visibility (such as fog and ice) calls into question the status and the reliability of this knowledge (the French word "connaissance", which normally means "knowledge", often takes on the meaning of "site" in these texts, as in the phrase "prendre connaissance de", meaning "to sight" or "catch sight of").
We sighted several ice formations to the east, which are undoubtedly close to Monsielo Island, which we have not caught sight of, because the horizon is very foggy. (5) In the afternoon, we thought we saw Barren Island, whose cape I had gradually perceived in the morning, but the fog prevented us from distinguishing anything. (6)
The success of the mission depended on one's ability to decode nature's signs, and to recognize which ones could serve as a warning to the sailors:
At daylight, I saw several pieces of ice passing along the shore, and I believed they could be the harbinger of an ice floe. (7)
[...] everything indicates that I am very near land, but I believe it is very low and that one must be quite close to it in order to see it. (8) Around seven o'clock in the morning, a little snow fell, a warning that we must leave Hudson Bay. (9)
By exercising extreme caution, deduction and quick thinking, La Perouse distinguished himself from the other members of his crew who seemed more susceptible to making common mistakes, as we see in this passage, which allows us to follow the navigator's thought processes (10):
Through the fog, we perceived a very elevated dark mass, and everyone firmly believed it was land. I immediately changed course and hailed the two frigates to do the same; they had also seen the same breakers and had not the slightest doubt that we were in a bay. Consequently I took the S.S.E. tack, but upon reflection, I remained convinced that the breakers which we had perceived spread out over an island of ice or ice floe, and that the dark mass which we had taken for land was a fog patch because, unless we had penetrated some bay, it was impossible for the coast to bear N.N.E. (11)
Some of the knowledge acquired through experience was directly related to the new spaces opened up by sailing in the northern regions, requiring on the part of the sailor the ability to adapt quickly, especially to the dangers of the ice. In a...
|
