Price: £110.00
Plan of the Bay and Harbour on the Coast of Chili Discovered by a Victualler to Commodore Anson's squadron in the South Sea, 1741. Publication: A voyage round the world in the years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV, George Anson. Engraver: Seale. R W, A plan of a bay probably in the Archipelago de los Chonos off the coast of Chile. Anson complained about the inaccuracies of the charts then available and made it an aim of his voyage to create a new and accurate set of charts for future mariners. He was conscious of the importance of this work for the future of British trade on the high seas. The map is orientated with north to the left and shows detailed depth soundings of the Bay. The victualling ship was anchored in the lee of the island called Inchin but strong winds and currents dragged her towards the cliffs. At the last moment a second anchor was used to stop the ship foundering on the rocks. This is a beautifully executed panoramic view of the coastline. George Anson, commander of a Pacific squadron, was given orders by the Admiralty to raid Spanish possessions along the South American coast and disrupt their trade. What was to be a reasonably short trip turned out to be a circumnavigation of the globe and including the sacking of Paita (Peru) and the captured of the Spanish galleon Nostra Seignora de Cabadonga (which was loaded with silver and two important maps that detailed the route Manila galleons had followed across the Pacific for almost two hundred years). Captain Anson's mission took him 45 months and cost, 6 ships lost, 1000 men lost to scurvy, 300 men lost to typhus and dysentery, and unknown number to shipwrecks and only 4 in action. Slight age toning, folds as given
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