Jean-François Marie de Surville (18 January 1717 – 8 April 1770) was a merchant captain with the French East India Company. He commanded a voyage of exploration to the Pacific in 1769–70. Born in Brittany, France, Surville joined the French East India Company in 1727 at the age of 10. For the next several years he sailed on voyages in Indian and Chinese waters. In 1740 he joined the French Navy; he fought in the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War, twice becoming a prisoner of war. After his military career he rejoined the French East India Company. In 1769, in command of Saint Jean-Baptiste, he sailed from India on an expedition to the Pacific looking for trading opportunities. He explored the seas around the Solomon Islands and New Zealand before proceeding eastward across the South Pacific towards South America. Part of his route around New Zealand overlapped that of James Cook in Endeavour, which had preceded him by only a few days. De Surville drowned off the coast of Peru on 8 April 1770 while seeking help for his scurvy-afflicted crew. Early life Born on 18 January 1717, Jean-François Marie de Surville was the son of Jean de Surville, a government official at Port-Louis, Brittany, and his wife, Françoise Mariteau de Roscadec, the daughter of a ship owner. One of nine children, Surville left home at the age of 10 and joined the French East India Company. There were existing family connections to the company; an older brother was already in its service and his mother was a niece of one of the company's directors. Surville's employer was a commercial enterprise supported by the French government and established several years previously to trade in the East Indies, and he sailed on trading voyages around India and China. By 1740 he held the rank of second ensign. Naval career Following the outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1740, Surville joined the French Navy, and fought in that conflict. He sailed aboard Hercule as an ensign and became a prisoner of war in 1745, when the ship was captured by the Royal Navy off Sumatra. After his release in 1746, he served aboard Duc de Chartres, which shipped goods from France to West Africa, where it collected slaves for transportation to the Caribbean, and then molasses from the Caribbean to France, a process known