Antoine Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux ( ) ( 8 November 1737 – 21 July 1793 ) was a French naval officer , explorer and colonial governor . He is perhaps best known for his exploration of the Australian coast in 1792 , while searching for the La Pérouse expedition . Antoine Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux is commonly referred to simply as Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux or Bruny d ' Entrecasteaux , which is a compound surname ( derived from his father ' s surname , Bruni and the family ' s origins in Entrecasteaux ) . Early career . Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux was born to Dorothée de Lestang - Parade and Jean Baptiste Bruny , at Aix - en - Provence in 1739 . His father was a member of the " Parlement " of Provence . Antoine Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux was educated at a Jesuit school and reportedly intended to become a priest in the Society of Jesus , but his father intervened and enlisted him in the French Navy in 1754 . In the action that secured the Balearic Islands for Spain ( and resulted in the execution of Admiral Byng ) , Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux was a midshipman aboard the 26 - gun " Minerve " , and in April 1757 he was commissioned as an ensign . His further naval career as a junior officer was uneventful , and he appears in this period to have done general service in the French Navy . For a time Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux was Assistant Director of ports and arsenals , after which ( 1785 ) he was transferred to command a French Squadron in the East Indies . During this service he opened up a new route to Canton by way of the Sunda Strait and the Moluccas , for use during the south - east monsoon season . He was then appointed Governor of the French colony of Isle de France ( now Mauritius ) . His explorations . In September 1791 , the French Assembly decided to send an expedition in search of Jean - François de La Pérouse , who had not been heard of since leaving Botany Bay in March 1788 . Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux was selected to command this expedition . He was given a frigate , the " Recherche " ( 500 tons ) , with Lieutenant Jean - Louis d ' Hesmity - d ' Auribeau as his second - in - command and Rossel among the other officers . A similar ship , the " Espérance " , was placed under Jean - Michel Huon de Kermadec , with de Trobriand as his second - in - command . A distinguished hydrographical engineer , Beautemps - Beaupré , was the hydrographer to the expedition . When the expedition left Brest on 28 September 1791 , Entrecasteaux was promoted to the rank of rear - admiral . The plan of the voyage was to proceed to New Holland ( Australia ) , to sight Cape Leeuwin , then to hug the shore closely all the way to Van Diemen ' s Land ( Tasmania ) , inspecting every possible harbour in a rowing boat , and then to sail for the Friendly Islands ( Tonga ) via the northern cape of New Zealand allowing gardener Félix Delahaye to collect live breadfruit plants for transport to the French West Indies . He was next to follow Pérouse ' s intended route in the Pacific . It was thought that La Pérouse had meant to explore New Caledonia and the Louisiade Archipelago , to pass through Torres Strait , and to explore the Gulf of Carpentaria and the northern coast of New Holland . However , when Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux reached Table Bay , Cape Town on 17 January 1792 , he heard a report that Captain John Hunter ( later to be Governor of New South Wales ) had recently seen – off the Admiralty Islands – canoes manned by natives wearing French uniforms and belts . Although Hunter denied this report , and although the Frenchmen heard of the denial , Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux determined to make directly to the Admiralty Islands , taking water and refreshing his crew at Van Diemen ' s Land . On 20 April 1792 , that land was in sight , and three days later the ships anchored in a harbour , which he named Recherche Bay . For the next five weeks , until 28 May 1792 , the Frenchmen carried out careful boat explorations which revealed in detail the beautiful waterways and estuaries in the area . Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux was fortunate in having good officers and scientists ; the most important from the exploration point of view was the expedition ' s first hydrographical engineer , C . F Beautemps - Beaupré , who is now regarded as the father of modern French hydrography . The work this officer did in the field was excellent , and his charts , when published in France as an " Atlas du Voyage de Bruny - Dentrecasteaux " ( 1807 ) were very detailed . The atlas contains 39 charts , of which those of Van Diemen ' s Land were the most detailed , and which remained the source of the English charts for many years . Beautemps - Beaupré , while surveying the coasts with Lieutenant Crétin , discovered that Adventure Bay , which had been discovered by Tobias Furneaux in 1773 , was on an island which was separated from the mainland by a fine navigable channel . On 16 May , d ' Entrecasteaux commenced to sail the ships through the channel , and this was accomplished by the 28th . Port Esperance , the Huon River , and other features were discovered , named , and charted , the admiral ' s names being given to the channel ( D ' Entrecasteaux Channel ) and the large island ( Bruny Island ) separated by it from the mainland . On 28 May 1792 , the ships sailed into the Pacific to search for La Pérouse . On 17 June , they arrived off the Isle of Pines , south of New Caledonia . From there , d ' Entrecasteaux sailed northward along the western coast of New Caledonia . The Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux reefs at the northwestern end of the New Caledonia Barrier Reef are named for him . He then passed the Solomon Islands along their southern or western coasts , sailed through Saint George ' s Channel between New Ireland and New Britain , and on 28 July sighted the south - east coast of the Admiralty Islands . After three days spent in scrutinizing the eastern and northern coastline , Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux decided that the rumours he had heard in Table Bay must be false , and he therefore set sail for Ambon , where his ships replenished their stores . Leaving Amboina on 14 October , Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux made for Cape Leeuwin to carry out his original instructions of searching southern New Holland for La Pérouse . On 6 December land was sighted near Cape Leeuwin , and named D ' Entrecasteaux Point . This event was celebrated by feastings and parties , one result of which was that the smith on board " Recherche " , Jean - Marie Marhadour over - indulged and died next day from an apoplectic fit . The weather was boisterous , and the ships failed to find King George III Sound , originally discovered by Vancouver . As they sailed further east , they penetrated numerous islands and dangerous shoals , to which they gave the name " D ' Entrecasteaux Islands " — later changed to the Recherche Archipelago . While the Frenchmen were still in that dangerous area , on 12 December a violent storm descended upon them , and both ships were nearly wrecked . Fortunately , however , they found an anchorage where they were able to ride out the worst of the gale . Landings were made here on the mainland , and the locality was named in honour of Legrand , who had spotted the anchorage , and the ship he was on , " Espérance " . Beautemps - Beaupré made a hasty survey of the off - lying islands of the archipelago . No water was found , and on 18 December the ships continued eastward to the head of the Great Australian Bight , but here the coast was found to be even more arid , and the water position more serious . On 4 January 1793 , Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux was forced to leave the coast at a position near Bruni d ' Entrecasteaux Reef and sail direct to Van Diemen ' s Land . In this decision the French explorer was unfortunate , for if he had continued his examination of the southern coast of New Holland , he would have made all the geographical discoveries that fell to the lot of Bass and Flinders a few years later . Then , indeed , a French " " Terre Napoléon " " might well have become a fact . The ships anchored in Recherche Bay on 22 January , and a period of five weeks was spent in that area , watering the ships , refreshing the crews , and carrying out explorations into both natural history and geography . Beautemps - Beaupré , in company with other officers , surveyed the northern extensions to Storm Bay – the western extension was found to be a mouth of a river and received the name Rivière du Nord – it was renamed the Derwent River a few months later by the next visitor to this area , Captain John Hayes in the " Duke of Clarence " and the " Duchess " . On 28 February d ' Entrecasteaux sailed from Van Diemen ' s Land towards the Friendly Islands , sighting New Zealand and the Kermadec Islands en route . At the Friendly Islands , he found that the natives remembered Cook and Bligh well enough , but knew nothing of La Pérouse . He then sailed back to New Caledonia , where he anchored at Balade . The vain search for La Pérouse was then resumed to Santa Cruz , then along the southern coasts of the Solomon Islands , the northern parts of the Louisiade Archipelago , through the Dampier Strait , along the northern coast of New Britain and the southern coast of the Admiralty Islands , and thence north of New Guinea to the Moluccas . By this time , the affairs of the expedition had become almost desperate , largely because the officers were ardent royalists and the crews equally ardent revolutionaries . Kermadec had died of phthisis in Balade harbour , and on 21 July 1793 , d ' Entrecasteaux himself died of scurvy , off the Hermits . Commands were re - arranged , with Auribeau taking charge of the expedition , with Rossel in Kermadec ' s place . The new chief took the ships to Surabaya . Here it was learned that a republic had been proclaimed in France , and on 18 February 1794 Auribeau handed his vessels to the Dutch authorities so that the new French Government could not profit by them . Auribeau died a month later and Rossel sailed from Java in January 1795 on board a Dutch ship , arriving at Table Bay in April 1795 . There his ship sailed unexpectedly with the expedition ' s papers , leaving him behind , but this vessel was captured by the British . Rossel then took passage on a brig - of - war , but this too was captured by the British . After the Peace of Amiens in 1802 , all the papers of the expedition were returned to Rossel , who was thus enabled to publish a narrative of the whole enterprise . Australian places with name . Direct naming occurs at the following :