Bougainville, Comte Louis Antoine de

Bougainville, Comte Louis Antoine de (1729–1811), best known as a French naval officer and navigator although he was a professional soldier until he was 37. In the latter capacity he served with distinction under Montcalm in Canada during the Seven Years War (1756–63). However, after the peace his ambitions turned to the sea. At his own expense he established a colony on the Falkland Islands. This met with objections from Spain and, when Bougainville sailed in December 1766 in command of the frigate La Boudeuse, accompanied by a storeship, his first task was the evacuation of the settlement.

The evacuation completed, the expedition passed through the Straits of Magellan and crossed the Pacific in the trade wind belt to Tahiti, which Bougainville formally annexed, though it had been discovered eight months previously by a British officer, Captain Samuel Wallis (1728–95). The Frenchman's eulogistic description of the island and its inhabitants gave support to the contemporary cult of ‘the noble savage’. Sailing on westwards, he rediscovered the island of Espiritu Santo, first found by the Spanish explorer Pedro Quiros (1565–1615) in 1606. He then became the first European to sight Australia's eastern coastline when, in June 1768, he found his way barred by the Great Barrier Reef in latitude 15° S. To escape this area of perilous lee shores, he beat his way to windward until he could weather the eastern tip of New Guinea.

Passing through the Solomon Islands, one of which bears his name today, and visiting New Britain, the Moluccas, and Batavia, he completed his circumnavigation at Saint-Malo in March 1769, having lost only seven men out of 200, a remarkable achievement for the times.

In 1782 Bougainville commanded a division of the French Fleet at the battle of the Saints during the War of American Independence (1775–83), and in the French Revolution he narrowly escaped becoming a victim of the ‘Terror’. He later gained the favour of Napoleon who made him a count of the empire, a senator, and a member of the Legion of Honour. The flamboyant climbing plant Bougainvillaea is named after him.