La Perouse is a suburb in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The suburb of La Perouse is located about 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) southeast of the Sydney central business district, in the City of Randwick. La Perouse was named after the French navigator Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (1741–88), who landed on the northern shore of Botany Bay west of Bare Island on 26 January 1788. Captain Arthur Phillip and the first fleet of convicts had arrived in Botany Bay a few days earlier. Louis XVI of France had commissioned Lapérouse to explore the Pacific. In April 1770 James Cook’s expedition had sailed onto the east coast of Australia whilst exploring the south Pacific searching for Terra Australis or ‘Land of the South’. Upon King Louis XVI’s orders, Lapérouse departed Brest, France, in command of the Astrolabe and Boussole on 1 August 1785 on a scientific voyage of the Pacific inspired by the voyages of Cook. La Perouse in Sydney’s south is named after the leader of this French expedition.