#MB79
Ca 1840s.
On a folded Octavo leaf (15,5x10 cm). 1 p. Brown ink on paper, text in French. Mild fold marks, otherwise a very good letter.
“I have received your letter my dear Henry and may set a date with you for the 16th as it is most convenient for you - you may tell me where we should meet up, whether I should go to the secondary school or to your aunt's and at what sort of time. I believe that it would be better at 5 o'clock at your aunt's, but it will be as you wish. The last letter that I have received from your father was dated May 26th. He was in good health, and has mentioned at last how boring it was for me in Martinique [...]”
“As a young second-class midshipman of eighteen Hyacinthe de Bougainville participated in the 1800-02 Baudin expedition to Australia. Hyacinthe de Bougainville sailed around the world from 1824 to 1826 onboard Thétis and Espérance, sent by the Minister of the Navy and the Colonies, the duc de Clermont-Tonnerre. On 12 January 1825, Hyacinthe de Bougainville led an embassy to Vietnam with Captain Courson de la Ville-Hélio, arriving in Da Nang, with the warships Thétis and Espérance. Although they had numerous presents for the Emperor, and a 28 January 1824 letter from Louis XVIII, the ambassadors could not obtain an audience from Minh Mạng. Hyacinthe de Bougainville infiltrated Father Regéreau from the Thétis when it was anchored in Da Nang, triggering edicts of persecution against Christianity by Minh Mạng. Bougainville visited New South Wales in 1825. That same year, he visited Port Jackson and Sydney where he set up a monument to La Pérouse in Botany Bay” (Wikipedia). Bougainville was a French naval officer (appointed rear admiral in 1838), circumnavigator and ambassador to Vietnam and a son of the first French circumnavigator Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811).
