ABSTRACT
After spending some time in Batavia learning about the Dutch monopoly in the spice trade, he led a French expedition for the Companie des Indes to Cochin-China to get plants for the He de France (Mauritius). His first efforts to acclimatise plants were thwarted by nature and authority but later, as superintendent of lie de France and Bourbon, he had enough influence to organise his own scientific expeditions using his nephew Pierre Sonnerat (1749-1814) as the principal scientist.
