Map 9: Part of New England from The English Pilot, Fourth Book
John Thornton London, 1689 Engraving. 48 x 44 cm. About this Map In the 1670s an English mapmaker, John Seller, decided to break the Dutch monopoly on mapmaking… [ more ]  Main Map
About this Map In the 1670s an English mapmaker, John Seller, decided to break the Dutch monopoly on mapmaking and to publish charts that would be useful to English navigators. The result was The English Pilot, a sea atlas of the whole world published in a series of volumes, each covering a different area. Seller's project was not an immediate success, however, for his first two volumes were based on Dutch maps and contained many inaccuracies about British home waters. The rights to Seller's brainchild were then acquired by a group who published volume four, which covered the New World, in 1689. The English Pilot, Fourth Book was updated frequently and became the standard navigational guide to American waters until its publication ended in 1800. John Thornton was the leading English hydrographer of his day. His chart of New England from the fourth book of The English Pilot, reproduced here, was the first chart accurate enough for navigational use. It includes soundings as well as banks, shoals, islands, and coastal features.
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