Abraham Duquesne-Guitton

Captain, later Admiral, Abraham de Bellebat (Belébat?) de Duquesne-Guitton, also spelled Duquesne-Guiton (1648-d. 1724 in Rochefort), was a French naval commander.

In 1687 he sailed from the Cape of Good Hope in the "L'Oiseau", with a French Ambassador, Claude Céberet du Boullay, onboard, to establish a French Embassy in the Kingdom of Siam.

He sighted Eendracht Land on the West Australian coast and sailed in close to shore near the Swan River on 4 August - this was France's first recorded contact with Australia. He wrote that it looked very attractive, and fully covered with green despite "the fact that we were in the middle of winter in this country."Citation
last =
first =
title =French maritime history in WA - wait, there’s more - and it’s sensational!
journal =The Australian Association for Maritime History, Quarterly Newsletter
volume =
issue =79
pages =3-4
date =June
year =2000
url =http://www.aamh.asn.au/news/0079.pdf
doi =
id = ]

His nephew Nicolas Gedeon de Voutron also sighted the western coast of Australia that year on another ship at the same latitude.

He was also appointed Governor General of the Windward Islands ("Gouverneur général des Isles du Vent") in reward for renouncing Protestantism and becoming a Catholic, and held that office from 1714 to 1717. [cite book
last =Pritchard
first =James
title =In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670-1730
publisher =Cambridge University Press
date =2004
location =Cambridge
pages =512
url =http://books.google.com/books?id=kK9wa98I4eEC&pg=PA245&lpg=PA245&dq=%22duquesne+guitton%22+naval&source=web&ots=_1CJRXm7Ab&sig=rt6HK1iXtgzipn87bqPwOtfG3oA
isbn = 0521827426 p245]

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