Nouveau voyage aux Indes Orientales, 1786-1813

SAFE/A 157 (Safe 1/421)
SAFE/A 158 (Safe 1/422)
SAFE/A 159 (Safe 1/423)

fonds

1786-1813

824677

Microfilm : CY 585, frames 1-1190

0.12 metres of textual material (3 volumes)

French explorer and naturalist was the nephew of the botanist Pierre Poivre. He made several voyages to southeast Asia, visiting the Philippines and Moluccas between 1769 and 1772, and India and China from 1774 to 1781. He was employed in the King’s navy as Ecrivain de Vaisseau. During a mission to the Cape of Good Hope he met with Sir Joseph Banks who was returning to England on the Endeavour in April 1771 and viewed his collection and received a gift of skins of birds from Australia. Sonnerat returned to France in 1781 and was promoted to Commissaire des Colonies and was elected Correspondant to the botanical section of the Institut National in 1803. In 1813 was repatriated from India through the offices of Sir Joseph Banks and brought with him the manuscript of the Nouveau Voyage aux Indes Orientales which he had not been able to print in Madras or l’Isle de France. His published works include Voyage a la Nouvelle Guinee (1776) and Voyage aux Indes orientales et à la Chine, fait depuis 1774 jusqu'à 1781 (1782).

Reference:
Pierre Sonnerat 1748-1814 / Madeleine Ly-Tio-Fane. Mauritius [s.n.],1976

This manuscript differs from Sonnerat’s previous publications with additional information describing current events facing India from 1783 through to British rule. It also includes a description of Bengal and Hindustan, accounts of the Emperors of India and wars of the Europeans in India.

After Sonnerat’s return to Ponidcherry in 1786 he began to think up a new publication. In June 1788 writing to Adanson he mentioned that it might appear as a supplement to his Voyage aux Index Orientales et a la Chine, 1782. A copy of the prospectus for this publication was sent to the attention of the Institut National and to his friends, M.M de Lacepede, Fourcroy, Lamarck, Geoffroi and Desfontaines. Discussing the subject matter Sonnerat made it clear that the work was quite distinct from his publication of 1782 and different from the second edition. In the new work `Nouveau Voyage aux Indes Orientales’. The only clue to the fate of this manuscript is in a letter written from his daughter Adelaide Sonnerat-Wilson in Pondicherry on the 9th September 1816 to Antoine Laurent de Jussieu. She states that the work has stayed in the hands of Monsieur Menissier, the brother-in-law of my father and requested that he hand it over to him directly.