John Mitchell | A Map of the British and French Dominions in North America, 1755 [but c.1774]

The Property of Sir Brooke Boothby, 15th Bt., removed from Fonmon Castle, Glamorgan

John Mitchell

A map of the British and French dominions in North America, with the roads, distances, limits and extent of the settlements. London: printed for Jeffreys and Faden, Geographers to the King, 1755 [but c.1774]

Fourth edition, large engraved wall map on 8 sheets joined, 1378 x 1946 mm., coloured by hand, dissected into 32 sections and backed on linen, folding into a contemporary book-style slipcase, slipcase defective

THE PRIMARY POLITICAL TREATY MAP IN AMERICAN HISTORY. This rare map is regarded by many authorities as the most important map in the history of American cartography. Twenty-one editions and impressions of the map appeared between 1755 and 1781.

John Jay used a copy of the third edition during the negotiations of what would become the Treaty of Paris (1783). It continued to be consulted in boundary disputes throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and even into the twentieth. It was used in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, the Quebec boundary definition of 1871, the Canada-Labrador case (1926) and the Delaware-New Jersey dispute (1932), among others.

REFERENCES: Tooley (1988) 54e; Mitchell 171