History of Astronomy for the Year 1805. 359 
he'steered for Tunis: he then went to Tripoli, and returned 
into the Adriatic gulf. In 1768 he commanded the Hi- 
rondelle, in 1775 the Mignonne, and in'1776 the Atalanta, 
on board of which was M. Choiseul. He was in possession 
of a time-keeper, without which he could not have drawn 
the chart of the Cyclades and that part of Greece adjoining 
he had reserved this business to the present opportunity. ° 
‘The inscription he caused to be engraved in the grotio of 
Antiparos proves his ‘great learning, and will be a monu- 
ment of it to future travellers. At his return our able’ astro-- 
nomer Mechain, beitig attached to tae depot of which 
M.:de Chabert was director, passed several years of his life 
in reducing and ‘calculating this immense quantity of ob- 
servations, which had cost so many years of Jabour and tra- 
velling, and from which resulted the best charts of that part 
of the Mediterranean.» Several times he was in imminent 
danger of his life. I hope his journal will be published, 23 
it cannot fail to excite considerable interest ‘from the ance- 
dotes I have heard him reiate. 
The American war obliged’ him to exchange his scientific 
labours for ‘the military marine service in the naval arma- 
ments of generals d’Estaing and De Grasse. In 1778 he 
commanded the Valiant in d’Estaing’s fleet: in 1750 |- 
had the Saint Esprit: be fought a battle, near the Chesa- 
peak, with five English vessels, on the 5th of September 
1781: he relieved the Diadem, which the Enelish were very 
near having taken. He brought safely into a French port a 
convoy of 130 sail; he was then named chef d’escadre, and 
received the red ribbon ; this was the reward of twenty-two 
naval campaigns, in fifteen of which he commanded cor- 
vettes, frigatesy or ships of the line: he sailed during the 
whole of the war, which ended in 1783, first as commander 
of a vessel and afterwards as chief of a division, without ever 
neglecting his astronomical observations and ‘the use of the 
time-keepers, as may be seen in the Memoirs for 1783. 
The misfortunes of the revolution obliging him to remove 
from France, he went to England, where Dr. Maskelyne 
paid him every attention that could be expected from one 
great astronomer to another, giving him an unlimited credit 
Z4 upon 
