A Chart of the Harbour of Halifax in Nova Scotia; with Jebucto Bay and Cape Sambro ... Survey'd by order of His Excellency Brigadier General Lawrence, Gouvernor of the Province of Nova Scotia, By Charles Morris, Chief Surveyor by MORRIS, Charles (1711-1781) - Thomas JEFFERYS (1719-1771) - 1775

London: "Printed for & sold by Robt. Sayer and Jno. Bennett", 1775. Engraved map. Three columns of text under the heading "Directions for avoiding the Ledges lying to the Eastward & Westward of Sambro Island..." Dedication by Jefferys to the Earl of Halifax. Rare early maritime chart of the entrance to Halifax harbor, engraved by Jefferys after noted Massachusetts soldier and surveyor Charles Morris, among the founders of Halifax. In 1746, Charles Morris, an American surveyor, received a commission to raise a Massachusetts regiment and proceed to Nova Scotia as part of the British American attempt to protect the region from French encroachment. Morris was present at the bloody Battle of Grand Pre, a disastrous defeat of the Massachusetts force. Morris, one of few survivors, returned to Boston only to be sent back to Nova Scotia in 1748 to ascertain the locations of French forces and scout possible regions for British settlement. The results of this expedition led directly to the founding of the city of Halifax by a British force under the command of Governor Edward Cornwallis. Morris accompanied Cornwallis and was charged with laying out the new town. Following the capture of Louisbourg, and with the region firmly in control of the British, Morris would settle in Halifax, becoming its first Chief Justice, and as evidenced by this map, its Chief Surveyor. At the conclusion of the French and Indian War, the British needed accurate charts of the territories that had been awarded to them in the Treaty of Paris. Jefferys therefore engraved this chart after Morris's surveys, first publishing it in his General Topography (London, 1768). The chart would subsequently be reissued by Sayer and Bennett in their North American Pilot, the present copy being from the 1775 first edition of that great nautical atlas. Kershaw, Early Printed Maps of Canada 281 (incorrectly dating the map 1777).