A Draught of Blewfields Lagoon on the Moskito Shore.
London, Printed for Robert Sayer, No.53, Fleet Street, as the Act directs, Jan 1.st 1788.
Engraving with large margins, paper watermarked. Plate 240 x 190mm (9½ x 7½"). Paper toning.
A rare plan of Blewfield's Lagoon on the east coast of Nicaragua. Abraham Blauvelt (Blewfield) was a Dutch privateer and explorer, who was responsible for mapping much of the east coast of Central America in the 1630s. Blauvelt was first recorded exploring the coasts of present day Honduras and Nicaragua in service of the Dutch West India Company. He later travelled to England in an effort to gain support to establish a colony in Nicaragua near the city where Bluefields, Nicaragua presently stands. Around 1640 Blauvelt became a privateer serving the Swedish East India Company and in 1644 he commanded his own ship successfully raiding Spanish shipping from a base in southwest Jamaica, today known as Blewfields Bay, and selling the cargo and prizes to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (New York). After peace between Spain and the Netherlands was reached with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, Blauvelt, unable to stay in New Amsterdam, instead sailed to Newport, Rhode Island in early 1649 to sell his remaining cargo. However the colonial governor seized one of Blauvelt's prizes and with his crew arguing over their shares, the local colonists, fearing that Rhode Island would acquire a reputation of trading with pirates, forced Blauvelt to leave the colony. For the next several years Blauvelt commanded a French ship called La Garse, later living among the natives of Cape Gracias a Dios near the border of Honduras and Nicaragua, until the early 1660s when he was recruited for Christopher Myngs' raid on the Spanish colony of Campeche Bay in 1663.
[Ref: 30439] £420.00
Engraving with large margins, paper watermarked. Plate 240 x 190mm (9½ x 7½"). Paper toning.
A rare plan of Blewfield's Lagoon on the east coast of Nicaragua. Abraham Blauvelt (Blewfield) was a Dutch privateer and explorer, who was responsible for mapping much of the east coast of Central America in the 1630s. Blauvelt was first recorded exploring the coasts of present day Honduras and Nicaragua in service of the Dutch West India Company. He later travelled to England in an effort to gain support to establish a colony in Nicaragua near the city where Bluefields, Nicaragua presently stands. Around 1640 Blauvelt became a privateer serving the Swedish East India Company and in 1644 he commanded his own ship successfully raiding Spanish shipping from a base in southwest Jamaica, today known as Blewfields Bay, and selling the cargo and prizes to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (New York). After peace between Spain and the Netherlands was reached with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, Blauvelt, unable to stay in New Amsterdam, instead sailed to Newport, Rhode Island in early 1649 to sell his remaining cargo. However the colonial governor seized one of Blauvelt's prizes and with his crew arguing over their shares, the local colonists, fearing that Rhode Island would acquire a reputation of trading with pirates, forced Blauvelt to leave the colony. For the next several years Blauvelt commanded a French ship called La Garse, later living among the natives of Cape Gracias a Dios near the border of Honduras and Nicaragua, until the early 1660s when he was recruited for Christopher Myngs' raid on the Spanish colony of Campeche Bay in 1663.
[Ref: 30439] £420.00