Thomas Jefferys was one of the most important English map publishers of the 18th century. His work included prints and maps of locations around the world, but his most notable maps are of North America and the West Indies. He began his career in the map trade in the early 1730s, working as an engraver for a variety of London publishers, and eventually setting up his own shop. In 1746, he was appointed Geographer to the Prince of Wales, and in 1760 he became Geographer to the King. These titles granted access to manuscripts and cartographic information held by the government. In the early 1760s he embarked on an ambitious project to produce a series of English county maps based on new surveys, but ran out of money and filed for bankruptcy in 1766. He then partnered with London publisher Robert Sayer, who reissued many of Jefferys plates and continued to issue new editions after Jefferys' death in 1771. Jefferys' American Atlas and the accompanying West-India Atlas, published post posthumously, are considered his most important cartographic works.

This scarce and finely engraved map depicts Port Royal Laguna Called by the Spaniards Laguna de Terminos or de Xicalango. Anchorages are located within the large tidal lagoon. Smaller lagoons and rivers are named, and the surrounding forests are graphically rendered. A small island at the terminus of the Tabasco or Grijalva River is labeled Tabasco in ruins. Along the Ro. de Sumasinta (Usumacinta River), there is a small settlement also called Sumasinta. This map was also later published in Robert Sayer's General Topography of North America and the West Indies (1768), on the same sheet as a plan of Veracruz.

References: Phillips (Atlases) #3941-12.

Condition: B+

Issued folding, now flat, with minor toning and an infilled wormtrack that just crosses into the neatline at left.