In the history of mapmaking the Eighteenth Century is without doubt one of enormous progress in the techniques of cartography and equally enormous significance in the importance played by maps in the areas of exploration, colonisation, and ultimately war. Beginning in September 2020 we have looked in some detail at this process, as it concerned Ile Saint Jean, in five separate blog posts, and now we are beginning our last quarter of the century. It will lead us to the disappearance of the Island of Saint John as a geographical entity, to be replaced on the maps as Prince Edward Island. The last quarter of the Eighteenth Century, far from…

The maps I am about to show you here are the result of Samuel Holland’s great survey of Saint John’s Island which I discussed in my previous blog. But first I want to remind you that Holland’s achievement happened in spite of the fact that he was using old methods to determine longitude which were in the process of being replaced by the dependable new marine chronometer that could be used on land and sea for quick and very accurate results. The ultimate issue in surveying and navigating in historical times up to the late Eighteenth Century was determining the longitude of whatever place in which you found yourself. For…

The End of the Seven Years War In North America, the climax of the Seven Years War was the capture of Quebec City in September of 1759. With daring and success, the English, under General James Wolfe, fought well after a secret attack based on climbing difficult cliffs to a large pasture area called the Plains of Abraham today where they faced the disoriented French troops. The story is well known, and many books are available that tell it clearly and well. General Wolfe was shot and died in the field, comforted only by a soldier. General Montcalm, the commander of the French forces, was also wounded and died the…

The previous post ended with a brief account of the conquest of Louisbourg and Port la Joye by the British North Americans in 1745. We will return to that sad story shortly but first I want to introduce you to a great French cartographer, Nicholas Bellin, who produced beautiful and most elegant maps of the eastern parts of New France. Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703 – 21 March 1772) was a geographer and hydrographer. He was prodigiously clever and talented and at the age of 18 was appointed chief cartographer to the French Navy. He soon became part of a unique intellectual group called Les Philosophes – not so much philosophers…

Caveat lector! This post was written some months ago after I had assembled a good collection of maps that spanned the founding of the colony of Ile St. Jean until its first destruction, at the hands of British Americans, in 1745. I happily wrote the post and moved on to the next topic, the maps from the period of the rebuilding of the colony after 1745 to its ultimate destruction in 1758 and the complete British take-over after the Treaty of Paris in 1763. What I did not foresee was the looming availability of a large collection of mostly undated manuscript maps of the region and of the Island held…