[South Carolina] — Gascoigne, John, and William Faden

Copper-engraved sea chart (32 1/2 x 25 2/3 in.; 826 x 652 mm), on a full untrimmed sheet. 

Some very minor soiling and chipping to margins, expert repair to upper left corner, one or two tray spots not affecting image.

Sellers & Van Ee, Maps & Charts of North America & the West Indies 1529; Steven & Tree, "Comparative Cartography," in Tooley, The Mapping of America 71(a). Cf. Cumming, British Maps of Colonial America pp.47-49; The Southeast in Early Maps, 204

THE MOST IMPORTANT MAP OF SOUTH CAROLINA'S PORT ROYAL SOUND AND HILTON HEAD OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR, in the first state. This sea chart was one of the most detailed and accurate of any such map of the American coastline. The immense detail of the hydrography was the result of surveys conducted by Captain John Gascoigne, assisted by his brother James. In 1728, aboard the HMS Alborough, he employed the most sophisticated and modern techniques with exacting attention to detail to produce a manuscript chart. The next year, this chart was altered by Francis Swaine, and it would appear that Swaine's manuscript, or a close copy of it, found its way to the London workshop of William Faden. Faden, the successor to the great Thomas Jefferys, was already one of Britain's leading cartographers and this map, present here in the first state, although undated, was printed in 1776.

In the upper-centre of the image is the town of Beaufort, and numerous plantations are individually labeled.