'Plan de la ville de Sydney (Capitale des colonies Anglaises aux Terres Australes) Lev‚ par Mr. Lesueur & assujetti aux rel‚vemens de Mr. Boullanger. (Novembre 1802.)' [Engraved map].

This is a rare or used book from the Berkelouw Rare Books Department.

Original engraved map (34.5 x 48.5 cm) of Sydney hand-coloured in outline with key to 34 major landmarks in the infant colony. Mounted glazed and framed in a period frame. Fine. The map appears to be a prior printing of Lesueur's 'Plan de la ville de Sydney' of November 1802 which was published as part of Fran‡ois P‚ron and Louis Freycinet's Voyage de d‚couvertes aux Terres Australes (1807-1816). McCormick (1987 p. 96) records a similar (smaller at 19 x 21 cm and more detailed) map published as plate 1 in the Atlas (historique) published in 1807-1811 accompanying P‚ron and Freycinet's work (see Ferguson I 449). It depicts 38 major landmarks as at September 1802. Tooley (1979 pl. 172) records the same map as here offered measuring 34.5 x 48.5 cm dated November 1802 and naming only 34 landmarks. Tooley's map however bears the printed marginalia from the French Hydrographic Office: Hyd. Fr. No. 656 No. 30. He cites this map as being from the Freycinet Atlas accompanying the part of the Voyage relating to Navigation and Geography published in 1812 (see Ferguson I 536). As the copy here offered does not bear the imprint of the French Hydrographic Office we assume it to be a separately issued version likely released prior to the Atlas in 1812. At any event this is one of the earliest depictions of the infant English settlement of Sydney Town.The French expedition under Nicolas Baudin commissioned to chart the coastline of Australia sailed into Sydney in 1802. On board was Charles Alexandre Lesueur (1778-1846) draftsman/naturalist. Lesueur's delightful Plan captures the detail of the infant colony. The roads are clearly marked and for the first time some are named. A rough road the "Route de Parramatta" links Sydney with the important farming and market centre of Parramatta. Roads run parallel to the Tank Stream and the important transverse road (now Bridge Street) crosses by means of a log bridge from the Government House (No. 1) side of the Cove to the convict side. When the log bridge collapsed it was replaced with a stone one. The Sydney Gazette of 1 April 1804 proudly announced "On Tuesday last the New Bridge was rendered passable for carriages and among the first that crossed the arch was one of the timber-carriages drawn by eight bullocks laden with a tree of immense size and weight." Sydney was still of course essentially a penal settlement with the Government as the major employer of labour supplier of capital and manufacturer (see the government saltworks No. 24). But there are hints on the Plan of the commencement of independent activity - see for example Robert Campbell's stores on the west side of the Cove (No. 10). Campbell was one of the first of the great merchants and entrepreneurs who would enrich themselves - and Sydney too - by their trading ventures. A fine and particularly elegant map showing the colony from unnamed Cockle Bay (Darling Harbour) in the north to Palmers Cove (Woolloomooloo Bay) in the south and from Bennelong Point in the east to "Village de Brickfield" in the west. The principal buildings are identified by numbers and a legend.