as an explorer In 1771, shortly after the death of his wife, St Aloüarn was approached by a colleague, Yves de Kerguelen, who asked him join an expedition to New Holland. This reflected a broader French drive to annex territories adjoining the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Kerguelen and St Aloüarn first travelled to Port Louis, Isle de France (now Mauritius). On 30 April 1771, they left Port Louis in two small vessels: Kerguelen on board the 24-gun fluyt Fortune and St Aloüarn commanding the 16-gun storeship Gros Ventre. On 11 February 1772, in the southern Indian Ocean, the expedition sighted a large mountainous island that Kerguelen took for Australia. (The island was later named after him.) The two ships lost sight of each other during bad weather. After a party from Fortune had made a brief visit to the island, Kerguelen returned to France. After also landing a party on the island, St Aloüarn continued towards Australia and a rendezvous point at Cape Leeuwin, arranged earlier with Kerguelen. On 17 March he arrived off a bay (later Flinders Bay), near the cape. With no sign of Kerguelen, St Aloüarn followed the coast northward. At Baie de Prise de Possession ("Bay of Taking Possession"; later Turtle Bay), Dirk Hartog Island on 30 March 1772, Officer Jean Mengaud de la Hage became the first European to formally claim possession of Western Australia, on behalf of King Louis XV whilst St Aloüarn himself remained aboard the ship. It means that the honour of the claim on behalf of the king goes to Mengaud, rather than St Aloüarn. Members of Mengaud's ceremonial team raised the white ensign on the island and buried a bottle containing a document stating what had occurred, alongside two silver écu coins, worth six Livres tournois (Francs). This occurred in sight of Cape Inscription, where in 1696 the Dutch mariner Willem de Vlamingh had also left a commemorative plate recording his visit and that of Dirk Hartog in 1616. Aftermath By the time of the annexation, many of the crew of Gros Ventre were exhausted and suffering from scurvy. St Aloüarn made for Portuguese Timor, where he and his crew recuperated for a short period. Gros Ventre then visited Batavia (Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies, where St Aloüarn and some of his crew contracted "tropical diseases". On 5 September, they arrived at Port Louis, where they had been given