1728 Cutler / Halley / Senex Commercial Atlas of the World

This 1728 nautical atlas is the first openly published commercial geography produced for a general audience. 'No previous work in English had offered a survey of the world's trading sites on this scale' (Rogers, 2023). It was an ambitious project brought to completion by a consortium of mapmakers, printers, and writers. While it is conventionally credited to Nathaniel Cutler and the illustrious Edmond Halley, these supplied only portions of the monumental work. The maps can be assigned to John Senex, drawing extensively on a new projection provided by Henry Wilson; much of the descriptive content of the first part of the work has been attributed to the prolific Daniel Defoe, while the second portion - A General Coasting Pilot; Containing Directions for Sailing - is attributed to Cutler.

The Big Gun

Edmond Halley's name is associated with this work to the extent that the book's auction and catalog references generally have the great scientist cited as an author. Halley certainly wrote the introductory 'To The Reader' page and endorsed the Atlas, particularly Henry Wilson's novel projection employed throughout the second part of the volume. Halley is also thought to have edited Nathaniel Cutler's navigational instructions in the second portion of the work. The primary mapmaker, Senex, had a history of leveraging his association with Halley to promote maps. (His competitor, Herman Moll, suggested that Senex's use of Halley's name was misleading.)

The Purpose of the Work

The production of the Atlas Maritimus et Commercialis spanned almost a decade, and the focus of the work changed over that time. The first goal was to promote the new 'globular projection' devised by Henry Wilson around 1719 (patented in 1721). The new projection appeared at a time when navigators were wrestling with the problem of determining longitude at sea, so new and more reliable charts were in demand. The initial promotion of the work emphasized these. But the production of the Atlas maritimus et commercialis also occurred in the peaceful era following the 1713 treaty of Utrecht, with the result that the end user of the work was not the naval but the mercantile world. Rather than simply providing a collection of charts, however novel, the publishers determined that in addition to these charts and a set of sailing directions, there ought to be a comprehensive discussion of Britain's global trade. Thus, the first portion of the atlas 'contains one of the most thorough analyses of international commerce published in English up to this date' (Rogers). It is a gazetteer of world trade, focused primarily on ports and harbors, providing analysis of English trade with each specific region. The work starts with the British Isles, moves on to European ports, and thence to Asia, Africa, and America. It specifies the trade goods to be expected in each area - Russia, for example, can be counted upon for leather and animal skins; Africa, for gold, ivory, and enslaved people. The author discusses the possibility of a Northwest Passage (and judges there to be none); he doubts the insularity of California (despite this, the charts included in the second part of the work, present the island unequivocally). The authorship of this first 344-page section of the book is anonymous but has been ascribed to Daniel Defoe. The attribution is supportable due to the British sections of the work having been drawn directly from Defoe's 1724-1726 Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain, while other portions were drawn from his A New Voyage Round the World and his A Plan of the English Commerce. One of the publishers associated with the present work, William Taylor, was the publisher of several of Defoe's books, most notably Robinson Crusoe. Many of the more than five hundred works attributed to Defoe were published anonymously, so it is not odd that this should be the case here. Despite evidence of Defoe having cribbed extensively from his own oeuvre, the majority of the writing for this work was new, and the time required for producing it goes a long way towards explaining the years taken to bring the Atlas to print.

The General Coasting Pilot

This second portion of the Atlas combined a detailed set of sailing instructions with the atlas' complement of charts. This section, ascribed to instrument maker Nathaniel Cutler and edited by astronomer Edmund Halley, focuses on the practical aspects of sailing to and from the principal ports whose trade is described in the first part of the work.

The Charts

Following the Coastal Pilot are 54 navigational charts; all scarce. The nature of the Atlas as a group publication has obscured the authorship of these in most research literature, with most scholars defaulting to Cutler. The quality and breadth of the charts argue against this, as Cutler has no recorded printed output beyond his Coastal Pilot. A better candidate would be John Senex, who, among the credited authors of the Atlas, was the only dedicated mapmaker. There are indeed enough similarities between these works and Senex's more concretely associated contemporaneous work to support the attribution. Also, Senex worked with Halley in several earlier productions, so it is likely that the connection continued here and that Senex was the mapmaker responsible for printing of the charts in this Atlas. (The illustrious Halley is sometimes offered as an author, but he is unlikely to have contributed more than his approval of the new projection utilized, itself devised by Henry Wilson.)

The sequence of the production of the various charts in this work is unknown; thus it is difficult to determine when the charts were composed to suit the new commercial focus of the Atlas. Some charts clearly foreground commercial interests. For example, A Chart of the Atlantick Ocean from Buttons Island to Port Royall prominently highlights not only the fishing grounds of The Grand Banks of Newfoundland but also the Virgin Rocks - now known mainly as a navigational hazard, these were renowned as one of the best cod fisheries in the Banks. An assemblage of the charts was likely produced even before Wilson's 1721 patenting of the Globular projection. It is understood that early efforts to enlist subscribers for the Atlas depended heavily on the presentation of completed maps, and these would disproportionately have been works displaying that new projection. Of particular note along these lines is the two-sheet chart on the Globular projection of Great Britain and Spain - titled not after these lands, but rather A Globular Chart shewing the errors of Plain, and the deficiencyes of Mercators Sailing, and Discovering the true Navigation according to the Globe, Invented and Performed by John Harris, John Senex and Henry Wilson. This chart was not only the only chart to include a dedication - to the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain - but also contained on it the endorsements of a merchant captain (John Merry) and Sir Edmond Halley; again, the endorsements not being for any particular chart or even the whole Atlas, but for the new projection.

There is evidence that Defoe's text was produced independently of Senex's charts and vice versa: On the subject of the insular California, Defoe expressed doubt, while Senex's charting of California as an island on A Correct Sea Chart of the Whole World was unequivocal.

The Audience

This copy of the Atlas is inscribed; on the title page is a note indicating that the book belonged to William Oliver, having been given to him by James Laroche of Bristol, in October 1729 (another indication of the early printing of this book). William Oliver (August 14, 1695 - March 17, 1764) was a British physician and philanthropist. In January 1729, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. James Laroche (1692 - 1770) was a prominent Bristol merchant who would, for a time, serve on that city's common council. His nephew, of the same name, was also a Bristol merchant known specifically for his involvement with the slave trade. The abundance of charts focusing on the African coast, Atlantic charts focusing on the regions relevant to the Triangle Trade, and a rich array of West India charts would have thus been useful.

Publication History and Census

The Atlas Maritimus et Commercialis was published in London by a consortium headed by James and John Knapton, William and John Innys. It was released in a sole 1728 edition. While the book is well represented in institutional collections, it seldom appears on the market, particularly (as here) with its full complement of charts.