One of the few maps of Scotland's ill-fated Darien Scheme

BELLIN, Jacques-Nicolas.

Rade du Darien et les Isles voisines.
Paris, 1764. 230 x 180mm, on heavy paper with good margins.

A map of 'Caledonia', Scotland's short-lived colony on the isthmus of Panama, 1698-1700, marking the city of New Edinburgh with its defences.
The Company of Scotland (the country's planned rival to the East India Company) attracted a vast investment for its proposed trading post in the West Indies. However a mixture of bad planning, fraud, disease and starvation, action by the Spanish and inaction by the English, caused the colony to crash in less than two years. Having lost a fifth of its wealth, Scotland was pushed towards signing the 1707 Act of Union with England to stave off bankruptcy.
A scarce map, engraved by Croisey for the only edition of Bellin's atlas, 'Le Petit Atlas Maritime'.


Stock ID : 20756