Print. This in no. 14 in the set of 18 separate views which Robert Marsh Westmacott (1801-70) first published at Exeter in 1848 as 'Sketches in Australia', comprising a series of tinted lithographic plates of Sydney and related harbour areas, mountains and southern coastal regions of New South Wales, all 'drawn from nature'. The monument, on today's Laperouse Headland, was erected at the instigation of Hyacinthe de Bougainville (son of Louis-Antoine, the explorer) and P.A. de N. du Camper of the French naval vessels 'Thetis' and 'Esperance' during the three-month stopover at Sydney in their round-the-world voyage. Bougainville visited the spot where Laperouse had set up camp during his brief stay at Botany Bay in 1788 and suggested the idea of doing so there. The 23-foot Tuscan column design was quickly devised by Mr Cookney, the British government architect at Sydney, and the foundation stone laid there on 6 September 1825. The site is also now that of the Laperouse Museum. On the plate the artist is called 'Captn. Westmacott' and he had been an Army officer in the 4th King's Own Regiment. When the set was re-issued in book form (now very rare) in 1852 he had dropped the military rank and called himself 'R.M. Westmacott Esqre, F.G.S, F.R.G.S' having been elected to both the Geological Society and the Royal geographical Society that spring. [PvdM 1/18]