Its author Henry Popple produced the map at the request of the Lord Commissioners of Trade and Plantations. The beginning of the seventeenth century saw an increase in claims by both the English and French to the interior of the continent. The French had their eye on the Ohio valley in particular. Early maps of the century by the likes of Guillaume De L’Isle for the French and Hermann Moll on behalf of the English produced maps to support their respective claims. The lower right sheet states clearly:

‘Mr. Popple undertook this Map with the Approbation of the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations; and great Care has been taken by comparing all the Maps, Charts, and Observations that could be found, especially the Authentick Records & Actual Surveys transmitted to their Lordships, by the Governors of the British Plantations, and Others, to correct the many Errors committed in former Maps, and the Original Drawing of This having been shewn to the Learned Dr. Edmund Halley, Professor of Astronomy in the University of Oxford, and F.R.S. he was pleased to give his Opinion of it in the Words following: I have seen the above mentioned Map, which as far as I am Judge, seems to have been laid down with great Accuracy, and to shew the Position of the different Provinces & Islands in that Part of the Globe more truly than any yet extant. Edmund Halley.’

Unfortunately, very little is known about Henry Popple beyond that fact that he was part of a family which served the Board of Trade and Plantations for three generations. This is his only known cartographic work. The map extends from the Grand Banks off Newfoundland to the west of Lake Superior, and from the Great Lakes to the north coast of South America. It drew upon not only British sources but the French mapping of Guillaume De L’Isle also. Some of the most significant contributions however were in the south east which incorporates the surveys of Colonel John Barnwell in the early 1720s. Construction began around 1727, a date which appears on the manuscript surviving today in the British Library.

The finished map was designed by Clement Lempriere (1683-1746) military engineer, draughtsman and engraver. The upper corners of the map include inset views of Mexico, Niagara Falls, Quebec and New York. The latter is derived from the large William Burgis view of c.1720. The right hand side is illustrated with inset maps of Boston, Charles-Town, Providence, Bermuda, and several others. The engraving was undertaken by William Henry Toms (fl. 1723-61) with the assistance of Richard William Seale (1703-62). Bernard Baron (1696-1762) engraved the wonderful title cartouche which takes up a whole sheet in the lower left of the map.

This is an example of Babinski’s state 7, however Pritchard and Taliaferro correctly call it state 6. Babinski identifies a state with only manuscript additions, this should really be classified as a variant. A state change is an alteration to the ‘state’ of the copper plates from which the map is printed, not something which is added to the paper printed from them. As is usual with Popple’s map, the twenty sheet wall map is uncoloured, while the index map has outline colour. Many of the alterations occurring in the early states relate to the newly formed colony of Georgia founded in 1733 by James Edward Oglethorpe. This state is the first published by William Henry Toms, the engraver, and Samuel Harding. It was issued from August 1739 when he acquired it jointly with his partner from Henry Popple. At the time the War of Jenkins’ Ear was occurring in the West Indies. Accordingly, the imprint on sheet 17 is altered followed by the pricing of the map in Sheets, bound and on ‘Rollers & Colour’d’. Popple originally sold the map at 4 Guineas (£4 4s.), Toms and Harding cut the price of the bound map by more than half to £1 16s. 6d. Its availability was announced in the ‘The General Evening Post’ for 9-11 August 1739 and the ‘The London Evening‑Post’ on 16-18 August 1739.

The Key map is in state 4 which was published circa 1740 and bears the addition of the track of Spanish Galleons from Vera Cruz to Havana. The early outline colouring designated the nations territorial claims. Babinski’s monograph notes that ‘a contemporary manuscript legend on the end-paper affixing the Key map to the binding in the King George III copy at the British Library: “Green – Indian Countrys. Red – English. Yellow – Spanish. Blue – French. Purple – Dutch.”

This example of the map is not listed in Babinski & Edney’s revised census of copies. They identified 7 known examples of the combined states of the map and key out of a total of 75 known examples of all 21 sheets. Popple’s map sold poorly, largely due to the high price of £4 4s. Of the 101 copies reviewed by Babinski, only 16 were in states 1 through 4a. Although approved of by the Lords Commissioners there was no sponsorship of the map.

Benjamin Franklin ordered two copies of the map on 22 May 1746 for the Pennsylvania Assembly Room in the east wing of Independence Hall, ‘one bound the other in sheets’. He goes on to note ‘I forgot to mention, that there must be some other large Map of the whole World, or of Asia, or Africa, or Europe, of equal Size with Popple’s to match it; they being to be hung, one on each side the Door in the Assembly Room’. The map was thought of highly by George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and many others of the period. It was used in to resolve many territorial conflicts between the British and the French during the French & Indian War. As late as 1895 it was still being used in the boundary dispute between Britain and Venezuela over British Guyana. It is probably without question the most significant map of the eighteenth century of North America after the John Mitchell map of 1755.

Provenance: acquired from a composite atlas May 2002; Private English collection. Babinski (1998) ‘Henry Popple’s 1733 Map of the British Empire in North America; Brown, Lloyd Arnold (1959) ‘Early Maps of the Ohio Valley’ no. 14; Cumming & De Vorsey ‘The Southeast in Early Maps’ 217; De Vorsey, Louis (1986) ‘Maps in Colonial Promotion: James Edward Oglethorpe’s Use of Maps in ‘Selling’ the Georgia Scheme’, in Imago Mundi 38 pp. 39-45; Fowle, E. McSherry (1987) ‘Two Centuries of Prints in America 1680‑1880’ nos. 6 & 7; Graff 3322; Howes P‑481; Lowery 338; Pritchard & Taliaferro (2002) ‘Degrees of Latitude’ pp. 134-41 listed as state 6; Schwartz & Ehrenberg (1980) pp. 151-2; Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).