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in which he invited her to come and refide with her; but on condition that he would quit her huf. band and daughter, for whom the King engaged to make a fuitable provifion. The Princefs did not hefitate a moment to refufe thefe conditions, and remained with her hufband till the year 1747, when he died.

. Being a widow, and without children, fhe returned to Paris, and took up her abode at the Hotel de Peru. Her defign was to retire to a convent; but the Queen of Hun

gary offered to fix her at Bruffels, with a penfion of 20,000 florins; But (adds Mr Duclos), I am altc. gether ignorant whether the went to refide there; but this I know, that within thefe fix years he was at Vitry, where the lived in a very reclufe manner, with no more than three fervants, one of whom was a negro. She was then called Madame de Moldack; but I know not who M. de Moldack was, and when the married him. She is now a widow; I faw her as fhe was taking a walk, in the year 1768 *.

LIFE of M. D'APRES DE MANNEVILLETTE, Knight of the Order of the King, Gorrefpondent of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and Affociate of the Royal Marine Academy.

[From the fame Work.]

JOHN BAPTISTE NICHOLAS DENNIS D'APRES DE MANNEVILLETTE, was born at Havre de Grace, on the 11th February 1707: his father was John Baptifle Claude D'Après, Efq. and lord of the ma. nor of Blangy, captain of a fhip in the fervice of the French Eaft India Company: his mother was Madamoilelle Françoife Marion.

M. D'Après de Blangy did not confide to a flranger the important care of forming the mind of his fon to fcience, and his heart to virtue; he was himself the preceptor of his child; and he fulfilled that office which affords the molt fenfible de. Light to a parent, as it is the most facred of his duties.

The young D'Après manifefted, in his earlicit years, a decided preference for the profeffion of his father, and his education was anxioufly directed to that object. Nor was the parental care difappointed;

when

for he was far advanced in the ftudy of the mathematics, at an agethe generality of children can fcarce ftammer forth a dead language, which is of lefs utility to the marine than any other profeffion. In fhort, never did fentiments of enthusiasm for a maritime life appear at an carlier hour, and with a more decided ener gy, than in the character of M. D'Après de Mannevillette.

In 1719, M. D'Après de Blangy was appointed to the command of the Solide, which the French Eaft India Company had deftined for Pengal. The early age of his fon had determined him to leave the boy at Havre; but his carneft entreaties prevailed, and he was per mitted, at length, to accompany his father; while an honorary com miffion of enfign on board the ship was obtained for him.

The Solide touched at the Isle of Bourbon for refreshment, and then proceeded

This last account was written in 1771.

proceeded to Pondicherry, where it arrived after a paffage of twentyfeven days, having purfued the general track, and with a degree of celerity of which there is no other example.

M. D'Après de Mannevillette employed every moment of his voy. age in making practical applications of the knowledge he had already acquired. A new career of ftudy prefented itfelf to his genius, and new difficulties offered themfelves to be furmounted by him. The theory of the young failor was confirmed by, as it was confolidated with, progreffive experience.

On his return to France in 1721, he haftened to Paris, in order to perfect himself in aftronomy and geometry: his mafters were M. M. de Life and Defplaces; and the rapid progrefs which he made in both thofe fciences, did equal honour to the, difpofitions of the scholar and the talents of his inftructors. After having drawn from the works of the most eminent geometricians, and the fociety of learned men, all the knowledge neceffàry to a navigator, he departed, in 1726, with the rank of fourth officer on board the fhip, Marechal D'Eftrées, which the French India Company had ordered to Senegal and the American illands.

This voyage was not fortunate: the earthquake which alarmed those iflands on the 20th of September 17-7, was accompanied with a dreadful hurricane, which either funk or greatly injured all the veffels in thofe feas. The Marechal D'Etrées, on fetting fail from the Caye St. Louis, was attacked by the tempeft; in a fhort time the rigging was rendered ufelefs, and the malts gave way to the violence of the wind. It was perceived, at the fame time, that the fhip leaked; and while one part of the crew was

employed at the pumps, the other was occupied in attempting to tow her to Cape François; where, after much fatigue and danger, fhe at length arrived. In this port, every exertion was made to repair the damages fhe had fuftained in the tempeft; and fhe was no fooner refitted for fea, than the unlimited confidence of the captain, in the capacity of the pilot, became more fatal than the ftorm. The ship had fcarce cleared the port, than fhe was embarraffed by the rocks of La Caye. The young D'Après had foreseen and foretold the danger into which the captain had brought himself, and pointed out, with mo deft confidence, the means of being extricated from it; but the evidence of a young man of twenty years of age was rejected with difdain and reproach, for attempting to direct thofe who had grown old on the feas. The opinions of the latter were followed; and the ship having ftruck upon a rock, there was no refource for the crew to fave themfelves from inftant death, but to cling to the upper part of the mafts, as the fhip itfelf had already funk. Fortunately they had fucceeded in getting out the long-boat and the barge, by which the greater part landed on the Great Caique, while the captain and fixteen men pushed forward to gain the Port de Paix.

M. D'Après de Mannevillette remained with thofe on the Caique, without shelter of any kind, and in danger of dying with hunger, as there was nothing to fuftain him and his companions, but a fmall portion of provifions which the failors had preferved from the fury of the waves. At length a boat arrived to fave him and his affociates in misfortune from the fate that threatened them.

He now returned to France, and three years paffed away without

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being able to obtain any employment from the Directors of the India Company; but, as he was not formed for inactivity and repofe, he, during that time, made two voyages to America on board mercantile veffels.

In 1780, he was appointed by the French India Company fecond in command of the brig Le Fier. The voyage he made in this veffel, gave him an opportunity of obferving the coast of Africa from Cape Blanc to Biffeau. The remarks which he made in the courfe of it, formed the fuperftructure of that celebrated work with which he has enriched his country.

On his return to France in 1732, M. D'Après remained fome time at L'Orient, where he married Madamoifelle de Binard; but love and hymen did not quench his predominant paffion, and he foon quitted the arms of his wife to follow M. de Tredillac to Cadiz, and from thence to the Madeiras: nor did he return to his country but to leave it again. M. Pocreau, captain of the Galatée, had received orders from the French India Company to fet fail for Pondicherry, and in his way thither to pass through the Mofambique Straits. Such a voyage was precifely calculated to inflame the defires of M. D'Après; he accordingly folicited a fituation in the Galatée, and obtained it.

He returned in 1785, and departed again in 1736, on board the Prince de Conti, in the fervice of the French India Company, of which he was appointed fecond lieu

tenant.

In his voyage he employed Had ley's quadrant, which had hitherto been exclufively ufed by the Eng. lith navigators; and, on his return to France, his firft care was to ftate, in a public print, his high eftimation of that curious machine; and by

thus procuring a reputation to this foreign invention in his country, he may be faid to have added to its most valuable acquifitions.

The trial that he made in 1740, in another voyage to India, of a machine prefented to the Academy of Sciences by M. Pitot, one of its members, was not fo fatisfactory. The object of this invention was to measure the track of fhips; but it did not anfwer the end propofed by it, and gave only a favourable idea of the talents of the inventor.

In all his voyages, M. D'Après was unceasingly employed on the important defign which he had conceived of correcting the charts of the Indian Ocean, and of the eaftern coaft of Africa and Afia.

"We may be affured," fays Fontenelle," that the charts of three quarters of the globe are but rough and imperfect sketches; and that even the charts of Europe, though fo much labour has been employed on them, are far from being correct refemblances of the original." If, therefore, the charts of Europe re ceived fuch an opinion of their inaccuracy from fuch a man, how much more fubject to critical objec tion must be thofe of India? It was to remedy fo many errors, and which have been fo fatal to navi gators, that M. D'Après, with an indefatigable zeal, collected all the memoirs, charts, draughts, and journals, which he could obtain in the various countries where he had been; and by comparing them with his own obfervations, he, at length, produced the Neptune Oriental, which holds the highest rank among the works that have been published on the important fubject of maritime geography, and deferves the gratitude of every commercial nation.

M. D'Après, who was as eager in the attainment of knowledge, as

he

he was negligent in the acquifition tice, the theories of thofe aftronoof riches, had made his voyages ra- mers. ther as a philofopher than a merchant: his fortune, therefore, was not fufficient to bear the expences which the publication of his work required. He accordingly applied to the French East India Company, who were ultimately to reap the fruit of his labour, for fupport and affiftance. They, however, required the previous approbation of the Academy of Sciences, which being readily granted, the Neptune Oriental was engraved and printed at the expence of the Company. It appeared in the month of November 1745, and the King permitted the author to prefent the first copy to

M. Halley, convinced, from his own experience, of the infufficiency of the common methods employed by feamen to find the longitude, propofed to determine it by the motions of the moon, and the occultation of the ftars occafioned by that planet; but the honour of having firft employed this method belongs folely to M. D'Après de Mannevillette.

him.

The eulogiums which this work received were not confined to France: all the navigators and learned men of other countries gave the author the moft flattering teftimonies of their regard. But M. D'Après appeared to be more anxious to merit applause by a continuance of his exertions, than to fit down in the quiet enjoyment of it; he therefore received, in 1749, from the French Eaft India Company, the command of the fhip the Chevalier Marin, bound to Senegal. This expedition gave him an opportunity of purfuing fresh researches; and now it was that he first attempted to determine the longitude at fea, by the diftance of the moon from the ftars and fun; a very bold attempt, which, from a want of proper inftruments, was not fo fuccefsful as it has fince been. It appears that Appian was the first who conceived the idea of making the obfervations of the moon fubfervient to the determination of the longitude at fea. Gemma Frificus and Kepler adopted his views; but it was referved for the age in which we live to realize, by prac

VOL. 2.

On the 21ft of October 1750, he departed again for India, on board the fhip le Glorieux, to the command of which he had been appointed by the Company; by whom he was inftructed to determine, in a more exact manner than had hitherto been done, the pofition of the Cape of Good Hope, and the Ifles of France and Bourbon. He was alfo ordered to examine the eastern coafts of Africa, from Laurent Bay to the Cape of Good Hope. He received on board his ship the celebrated Abbé de la Caille, whom the government fent to the Cape of Good Hope, to make obfervations. of great importance to the improvement of aftronomy, and to measure a degree of the meridian.

M. D'Après put into Rio de Janeiro on the 25th of January 1751, and arrived at the Cape on the 30th of March following; from whence he proceeded to fulfil the object of his miffion, and accordingly fteered towards the Isles of France and Bourbon. He deter mined, with the utmoft precifion, the pofition and form of thofe iflands; and he detected an error o about nine leagues in the extent of the Ifle of France from north to fouth, which he fixed at eleven leagues. two-thirds, while the old furveys had given it twenty-one.

Two years after, the Abbé de la ** E Caille

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Caillé received the orders of government to vifit both those islands, and to repeat the fane operations; and the calculations of the geometrician were in exact conformity to thofe of the navigator. M. D'Après, on examining, in his turn, the furvey, which the Abbé de la Caille had made of the Cape of Good Hope, difcovered that he had not placed Cape Falfe enough to the fouth.

M. D'Après, having executed his commiffion refpecting the Illes of France and Bourbon, fet fail in the fhip the Treize Cantons, the Glo. rieux having been detained by the governor of the Ifle of France for the fervice of the colonies, to take a furvey of Madagascar and the coaft of Africa.

In the year 1754, M. D'Après rendered a fignal fervice to navigation. Till that period, the French, in their paffage from the Iffes of France and Bourbon to India, had conceived an infuperable dread of the Archipelago, which extends from the north to the north-eaft of Madagafcar; nor had any of them attempted to pafs it, though it would have thortened the paffage opwards of three hundred leagues. M. de la Bourdonnais had, indeed, in the year 1742, made fome attempt to determine the poffibility of this paffage; but the war which took place foon after, obliged him to occupy himfelf with other objects.

Admiral Bofcawen, in 1748, had the courage to attempt this paffage with a fleet of twenty-fix fhips; but the French feamen were con tented to admire his fpirit, without following his example. M. D'A. près was the firit Frenchman who ventured to purfue the fame courfe as the English admiral. He alfo diffipated the apprehenfions of navi

gators, by giving a defcription of the islands and dangers which are met with in that Archipelago.

many voyages, and fuch a fucceffion His health being exhausted by fo of laborious occupations, he food in need of repofe; and his fole occupation was in giving his work every improvement which fubfequent experience and reflection en abled him to do. The inftructions which he published in 1766, by order of the Minister of Marine, for fhips bound for Europe to the Eaft Indies, was rewarded by the favour of the court, and the ribband of the Order of the King. In 1775, a new edition of the Neptune Oriental appeared under the aufpices of permit it to be dedicated to him. his Majesty, who was pleased to

tranferibing what was written on We fhall content ourselves with the death of M. D'Après, by Mr. Dalrymple, fo well known in this country, in Europe, and in India, for his fuperior knowledge of ma ritime geography.

thofe men which are feen every day. "M. D'Apres was not one of Very few, indeed, have advanced fo far in that branch of fcience to which He devoted his life. No maritime geographer, of any age or country, can be compared to him. His equal has never exifted."

This illuftrious navigator was which were to form a fupplement to employed in arranging materials the fecond edition of the Neptune Oriental, when death deprived the world of this great man, on the ift of March 1780; But M. D'Après de Blangy thought it a duty incumbent on him, for the public good, and for the honour of his brother, to publifh this fupplement.

Authentic

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