French Objectives for the Voyage

The French government's main aims were to correct and complete Cook's maps of the area, establish trade contacts, open new maritime routes, and discover whether the British intention to establish a colony at Botany Bay was a genuine form of settlement or intended to create a British Admiralty Pacific Fleet that would squeeze the French and Spanish out of extensive areas of the Pacific not yet explored. The expedition's ships, L'Astrolabe under Fleuriot de Langle and La Boussole, each of 500 tons, carried ten scientists including the astronomer Joseph Lepaute Dagelet, the geologist Robert de Lamanon, and the botanist La Martinière.