Voyages.- Fresne's voyage.- Crozet (Julien Marie) Nouveau Voyage a la Mer du Sud, first edition, 6 engraved plates and a folding map, some foxing, gathering N browned, contemporary French mottled sheep, spine gilt, extremities worn, some worming to upper cover, [Davidson, pp. 98-9; Hill 2, 401; Sabin, 72371], 8vo, Paris, Chez Barrois l'Aine, 1783.*** First edition of an important Pacific voyage by Fresne's second-in-command, the “earliest French voyage of exploration actually to reach Australia” (Davidson). Marion du Fresne's 1771-72 expedition sailed in search of Terra Australis which he envisioned as a French stronghold on the route to India and from which to repel British shipping. The expedition ended quickly and tragically in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand where Fresne and twenty-one of his men were killed by the Maoris. Crozet's account was compiled by Abbe Alexis Marie Rochon who originally had intended joining the expedition and retained a great interest in it. He included a long extract from J.F.M. de Surville's voyage to New Zealand as the attack on Fresne may have been in retaliation for the kidnapping of a Maori chief by Surville in 1769 just north of the Bay of Islands. Crozet's observations on Maori life, along with the reports of Cook and his officers, were the only available source material on New Zealand for the next forty years. The Crozet Islands, midway between the Cape of Good Hope and the Kerguelens, were named after the author.