It was a decision that he would not live to regret. Bougainville was immediately given two important missions. He was to establish a colony on the Falkland Islands, and then command the first French expedition to circumnavigate the earth. The settlement of the Falklands was a difficult task made worse by Spanish neighbors hostile to the enterprise. In 1766, France sold the colony to Spain, and Bougainville fitted out his two ships, La Boudeuse and L'Etoile, to complete the voyage.

In December of 1766 Bougainville passed the Straits of Magellan and emerged into the Pacific. His voyage was to be a stunning success. The expedition entered waters never seen by any European, and innumerable samples of unknown flora and fauna were collected. Bougainville skirted the Great Barrier Reef and was forced to head north, although he correctly predicted the existence of a great continent to the south. Discoverer of the Solomon Islands, he gave his name to the largest of them.

After clashing with natives on New Guinea, Bougainville refitted his scurvy- ridden little fleet at the Dutch colonies of Buru and Batavia, but soon pressed on. In March of 1769, he finally landed in Saint-Malo, having lost just seven men.

He immediately set to work writing his account of the expedition, Voyage Atour du Monde, which was published in 1771. A distinguished mathematician and skilled military officer, Bougainville was now a world-renowned navigator. Beginning in 1772, he was given the honor to serve as personal secretary to Louis XV.

With a new outbreak of hostilities with Great Britain, Bougainville, by this time a commodore, was attached to the squadron of Admiral Fran‡ois Joseph, Comte de Grasse, in the West Indies. De Grasse won several small engagements, and captured Tobago early in 1781. In August, the fleet left San Domingo to cooperate with the joint American-French operations in Virginia. De Grasse entered Chesapeake Bay, cutting off the army of Lord Cornwallis in Yorktown. On September 5, the French were at anchor with many of its men on shore duty.

Caught unawares by the British fleet of Admiral Thomas Graves that suddenly appeared at the mouth of the bay, de Grasse hurriedly got his ships underway. The French emerged from the Chesapeake in a scattered line of battle, and Bougainville, commanding the lead ships, was far ahead of the rest of the fleet. Although the British held the windward position, Graves inexplicably allowed several hours for the French fleet to close up its ragged line; he then struck obliquely, bearing down with only his lead ships.

Bougainville proved to be the most aggressive French commander of the day, heading straight for the British with his 80-gun flagship, the Auguste. Having crippled Admiral Francis Drake's 70-gun Princessa with a flurry of broadsides, Bougainville closed in and prepared to board. Drake fled the scene, exposing the Terrible, which was in truly terrible condition. This 74-gun ship was the most decrepit in Graves' fleet, and Bougainville gave it such a pounding that it was scuttled not long afterward. By the end of the battle, the Auguste had taken 70 hits in the rigging and 54 to the hull.

Graves pulled off, and eventually the French again entered the Chesapeake, this time reinforced by a squadron of Admiral de Barras. All hope was lost for the British. Graves fled to New York and Cornwallis surrendered on October 19. The fleet returned to the West Indies and captured several small islands, but met with disaster next spring. De Grasse and Bougainville faced Admiral George Rodney, a tough veteran who would not be fighting as Graves had been.

For three days, the two fleets sparred and jockeyed for position. On the 12th of April, Rodney, who took advantage of a shift in the wind, attacked near the Isle des Saintes off Dominica and broke de Grasse's line in two places. The French were raked by massed broadsides with little chance of returning effective fire. Several ships were lost, and survivors continued a vicious fight in lifeboats. The fleet was wrecked and de Grasse, along with his 104-gun flagship, was captured.

Elements in the government were furious. De Grasse's flagship, the Ville de Paris, was the largest warship in the world and someone had to pay. De Grasse and Bougainville were brought before a court martial, but both men were exonerated of any dereliction of duty.

Bougainville's reputation remained untarnished. By 1790, when he retired as commander of the Brest squadron, he had attained the rank of admiral in the navy and field marshal in the army. In 1792 he left the service for good and settled on an estate in Normandy.

But he continued to receive honors for his numerous accomplishments. In 1796 he was elected to the prestigious Institute Francais. During the reign of Napoleon, Bougainville was made a count, senator, and grand officer of the Legion of Honor. He lived to see France drained by the devastation of the Napoleonic Wars, but could rest on the laurels he had won in nearly forty years of service. When he embarked for Canada as a young man, he had remarked "What a nation is ours! Happy is he who leads and is worthy of it." He died in Paris on August 31, 1811.

Selected Bibliography

Bougainville, Louis Antoine de, Voyage Atour du Monde, reprint of English translation of 1792.
Davis, Burke, The Campaign that Won America: the Story of Yorktown, Eastern Acorn Press, 1996.
Eckert, Alan W., Wilderness Empire, New York: Bantam Books, 1969.
Pratt, Fletcher, The Battles that Changed History, Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1956.
Valiant, Joseph N., Jr., "Revolution's Fate Sealed at Sea," Military History, October 1995.
Wrong, George M., The Conquest of New France, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1918.

Bougainville: The Early Years

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