Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne
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Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne (1724 - 1772) was a French explorer. He was born in Saint Malo and joined the French East India Company at the age of 11 (which was not uncommon at the time) as a sub-lieutenant aboard the Duc de Bourgogne.
During the War of the Austrian Succession, he commanded several ships and was a captain by 1745. In the Seven Years' War, he was engaged in various naval operations.
After the war, he again sailed on the East India routes and eventually settled in Port Louis on Mauritius, where he also was the harbourmaster for some time.
When the French East India Company collapsed and was dissolved in 1769, du Fresne was suddenly unemployed. He convinced Pierre Poivre, the civil administrator, to equip him with two ships and send him on a two-fold mission: first, he was to bring Ahu-toru, a Tahitian who had been brought to Paris and exposed there, but brought back only as far as Mauritius, back to Tahiti, and second, he was to search for the southern continent. Du Fresne was given two ships, the Mascarin and the Marquis de Castries. Ahu-toru died of smallpox shortly after their departure from Port Louis.
On his expedition, he discovered first the Prince Edward Islands and then the Crozet Islands before sailing towards Australia. They spent a few days in Tasmania, where Marion Bay in the south-east is named after him, before proceeding, and he sighted New Zealand's Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont on March 25, 1772. He named the mountain Pic Mascarin without knowing that James Cook had named it "Mount Egmont" three years earlier.
Over the next month, they explored the islands, repaired their ships and treated their scurvy, first anchoring at Anchor Cove and later in the Bay of Islands. Apparently, their relations with the Māori were peaceful at first: they could communicate thanks to Tahitian vocabulary (a legacy of Ahu-toru's (mis-)adventure), and the Māori even held a ceremony for them. However, the French appear to have broken some tapu, probably fishing at a sacred place, and on July 12, 1772, du Fresne and twelve men of his crew were killed and eaten by the upset Māori. In retaliation, the French burnt down a village and killed some 250 Māoris before leaving on the next day.
The ship providing logistical support to the French Southern Territories of Île Amsterdam, Île Saint-Paul, Îles Crozet, and Îles Kerguelen is named the Marion Dufresne II.
