The captain left Boeton on the 7th of September, convinced that navigation in the Molucca Archipelago was not so difficult as it suited the Dutch to affirm. As for trusting to French charts, they were of no use, being more qualified to mislead vessels than to guide them.
Bougainville therefore directed his course through the Straits of Button and Saleyer; a route which, though commonly used by the Dutch, is but little known to other nations. The narrative therefore carefully describes, with mention of every cape, the course he took. We will not dwell upon this part of the voyage, although it is very instructive, and on that account interesting to seafaring men.
On the 28th of September, ten months and a half after leaving Montevideo, the Etoile and the Boudeuse arrived at Batavia, one of the finest colonies in the world. After touching at the Isle of France, the Cape of Good Hope, and Ascension Island, near which he met Carteret, Bougainville entered St. Malo on the 16th of February, 1769, having lost only seven men, in the two years and four months which had elapsed since he left Nantes.
The remaining particulars of the career of this fortunate navigator do not concern our purpose, and may be dismissed briefly.
He took part in the American war, and in 1781 participated in an honourable combat before Port Royal off Martinique. Made Chief of the fleet in 1780, he, ten years later, received a commission to re-establish order in the mutinous fleet of M. d'Albert de Rions. Created vice-admiral in 1792, he did not think it right to accept a high rank, which was, to use his own words, "a title without duties."
Nominated first to the Bureau of Longitudes, and then to the Institute, raised to the rank of senator, created a count by Napoleon I., Bougainville died full of years and honours, on the 31st of August, 1811.
Bougainville acquired popularity as the first Frenchman who accomplished a voyage round the world. Though the merit of discovering and reconnoitring, if not of exploring, many groups of islands little known and quite neglected before his time, has been ascribed to him, he owes his reputation rather to the charm and easy animation of his narrative, than to his labours. If he is better known than many other French naval officers, his competitors, it is not so much because he accomplished more than they, as because his style of narrating his adventures charmed his contemporaries.
As for Guyot Duclos, his secondary share in the enterprise, and his plebeian rank, excluded him from reward. He was afterwards given the cross of St. Louis, but he earned the title by his rescue of the Belle Poule. Although he was born in 1722, and had been in the navy since the year 1734, he was still only lieutenant in 1791. A succession of ministers of new views was needed to obtain the rank of ship-captain for him: a tardy recompense of long and signal services. Guyot Duclos died at St. Servan on the 10th March, 1794.