War of the Austrian Succession (1740-8)
Includes much of the mapping collected by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, as Captain General of the British army
Map of Cartagena, 1741 (Cartagena, Bolívar, Colombia) 37°36'18"N 00°59'10"W
1741 or laterEtching and engraving; printed on paper | Scale: 1:41,000 approx. | RCIN 728033
The combined operations attack, under the command of Admiral Vernon and Brigadier General Thomas Wentworth (d.1747), on Spanish-held Cartagena was intended to achieve British control over trade in the West Indies. The action took place between the middle of March 1741 and ended in a British defeat by June. (Browning; Harding.)
The attribution, made in the old catalogue entry, to the Toms and Harding map (RCIN 728032) as the source of Le Rouge's plan, is not specifically admitted to on the French map. Le Rouge states only that his map is based on an English map ‘with the permission of M. de Maurepas’. This may be a reference to Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas (1701-81) who was, at the time, Ministre de la Marine to Louis XV. Maurepas's wide-ranging intelligence service, focussed on British naval operations, would probably have included the aquisition of maps such as the Toms and Harding map. Indeed, the scales are very similar, and so are many of the details so that it is a reasonable assumption that the English map was among the source materials for Le Rouge's publication.
Additional text: [top left, below title, a key, A-I, K-T, V, X-Y, to the military actions in April 1741.] [Bottom left, inside neatline:] Suivant l'Original Anglois. 1741 / Avec Permission de M. de Maurepas.
Condition: slightly creased; not previously folded. Verso: water-stained patch, top left, from the removal of Cumberland's cipher label.
George Louis le Rouge (1707-93/4) (cartographer and publisher) [bottom left, outside border:] A Paris chez le Sieur le Rouge rue des grands Augustins vis a vis le Panier Fleuri.
Subject(s)
Royal NavyNavy-SpainWatermark: Bunch of grapes to left, and indeterminate initials to right
Condition: slightly creased; not previously folded. Verso: water-stained patch, top left, from the removal of Cumberland's cipher label
Scale: 1:41,000 approx. Scale bar: Milles Angloises [118 mm =] 3.
32.8 x 36.7 cm (neatline)
33.5 x 37.1 cm (image)
33.8 x 38.1 cm (platemark)
34.7 x 41.2 cm (sheet)
Printed title:
NOUVEAU / PLAN DE CARTAGÉNE / Avec les Dernieres Attaques des Forts / PAR L'AMIRAL VERNON. [top left]
Additional text:
[top left, below title, a key, A-I, K-T, V, X-Y, to the military actions in April 1741.]; Suivant l'Original Anglois. 1741 / Avec Permission de M. de Maurepas. [Bottom left, inside neatline]
Annotations:
George III heading: Cartagena 1741.
Other annotations: (Recto) [top right, black pencil:] 5. (Verso) [bottom left, black pencil:] 63; [bottom right, black pencil:] 5; [bottom right, black pencil:] 1741; [bottom right, black pencil, crossed out in black pencil:] 41; [centre, red pencil:] 63.
George III catalogue entry:
Cartagena Plan de Cartagene, avec les dernieres Attaques des Forts par l'Amiral Vernon en 1741; suivant l'original Anglois, 1741; chez le Rouge.
Subject(s)
Cartagena, Bolívar, Colombia (37°36'18"N 00°59'10"W)
Bibliographic reference(s)
R. Browning, The War of the Austrian Succession, Stroud 1995
R. Harding, The emergence of Britain’s global naval supremacy: the war of 1739-1748, Woodbridge 2010
J.C. Rule, ‘Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain et Maurepas: reflections on his life and his papers’, Louisiana History: The journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, vol 6, no. 4, 1965, pp. 365-377
Page revisions
23 May 2024
Current version
