The Voyages of Discovery
By the mid-eighteenth century advances in navigation led to a flurry of voyages of discovery. Prior to the development of precise chronometers, the discerning of longitude was an art developed by a navigator through the use of dead reckoning. The ability to accurately measure time and the development of the sextant made the calculation of longitude a science. Ships from Great Britain and France began to compete in voyages of discovery, which peaked in the years between the Seven Years War and the American Revolution. Both France and Great Britain competed for the prestige of being the leader in the acquisition of knowledge regarding the planet and its peoples.
The British explorer James Cook made voyages to chart the South Seas, the Alaskan coast, and the estuaries of the North American Pacific Coast. Cook’s voyages led to new knowledge in botany, geography, geology, the natives of various lands and archipelagos and were published in journals and scientific publications in England. In competition with Cook and other British captains, French vessels explored many of the same regions, and made discoveries of their own. In 1766 the first of the great French voyages of discovery was ordered by Louis XV, who appointed Louis de Bougainville to command it, consisting of two ships.
Officially de Bougainville was to open a new trade route to China as well as isolate spices which could be successfully cultivated on the island of Mauritius. Unclaimed lands discovered on the voyage were to be claimed for France. Bougainville spent a lengthy period of the voyage in Tahiti, observing the customs of the Polynesians there and on other islands. During the voyage Jeanne Bare, the consort of Bougainville’s botanist, disguised herself as a man to accompany her lover. Discovered after the ships were too far out too turn back, she remained with the expedition to the end and became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe.
When Bougainville returned to France he published portions of his journals, and his descriptions of the behavior and customs of the Polynesians were soon debated in France and England. To the British the Polynesians were seen as barbarians, to the French they were lauded as man in his natural state, occupying a veritable Garden of Eden. These attributes did much to underscore the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and other writers during the Age of Enlightenment. Bougainville had also completed the more than three year journey while losing only seven men of his company, a remarkable achievement while sailing in largely uncharted waters.
The competition between the British and French continued following the American Revolution and during the brief gaps of peace during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. It was during the voyages of discovery that it was learned that scurvy could be controlled through the use of citrus and other fresh fruits and vegetables, the Great Barrier Reef was discovered, and the Southern Indian Ocean charted. The scientific achievements of the voyages made Great Britain and France the capitals of advanced learning in the world at the time, though with differing views of their respective roles towards the world’s populations.