The Island of Diego Garcia is in the Chagos Group some 1,600 kilometres south of the tip of India. It is today one of only five monitoring stations in the world for the Global Positioning System (GPS). It is still unclear after whom the island was named though the group first appears on the Pierre Descelier manuscript of 1550. The highly important printed world map of 1599 by Edward Wright is the first to record Diego Garcia under its present name. This sea chart of the island group with Diego Garcia at the southern end of the map is from the 1781 supplement to the ‘Neptune Oriental’. The material collected for ‘Le Neptune Oriental’ was approved by the French Compagnie des Indes. D’Apres de Mannevillette was one of the first Hydrographers of France and an accomplished navigator. Born in Le Havre to a captain in the French West India Company, he made a voyage to the Caribbean in 1726. He showed an early interest in Navigation, was one of the first Frenchmen to use Hadley’s quadrant and was later in life a friend of Alexander Dalrymple. Upon publication of the atlas it was highly commended by everyone. NMM 205; Shirley (2004) M.Apr 1a.