This French version of the 1775 Jeffreys map is skillfully executed especially with respect to the rugged topography that is shown by the use of hachures. The chart includes a large inset map of the Fort-Royal Bay. The map was drawn from surveys conducted by the British in 1762-63 when England briefly controlled the island. It provides an excellent view of the topography, rivers, sugar cane plantations, cattle mills, water mills, churches, hospitals, settlements, and roads in the interior, and forts, safe anchorages and navigational hazards along the coastline. The sugar trade made the island so valuable to the French government that at the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years War, they gave up all of Canada in order to regain Martinique as well as the neighboring island of Guadeloupe.

References: Sellers & Van Ee #2064; Shirley (BL Atlases) T.LER-3a #25.

Condition: A+

A superb impression on a bright sheet with the watermark of a Maltese cross encircled in rosary beads. There is very minor marginal soiling and two small worm holes along the top edge of the sheet.