From 1776 to 1779, Englishman James Cook (1728-1779) led the fleet to sail around the Pacific Ocean for three times, which had a significant impact on cartography. The map here depicts the sailing routes of Cook’s exploration of the Pacific. The Pacific region was depicted more accurately, and the routes of Cook fleet were marked with a red dotted line. There are notes indicating the occurred incidents in some important places.  

There was no place name marked in Mainland China except for Pekin (Beijing) and Canton (Guangzhou). A part of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River was drawn on the map. Although the Pearl River has not been painted, the Delta of the Pearl River is still visible and only an island was portrayed and marked “Macao” outside the Pearl River estuary. During the third voyage in 1779, Cook was killed in Hawaii. In the long voyage back to England, his fleet once passed by Macau in 1780, and from there the furs obtained from the northwest coast of America were shipped to Guangzhou Port, opening up the trade known as “Shipping furs from north to south”. The red line via Macau on the map indicates the sailing route. It should be noted that after the Cook fleet arrived in Macau, members of the fleet drew a planimetric map of Macau, Cross Gate waterway and the surrounding islands. They knew clearly that Macau was a peninsula. However, Macau was mistakenly painted as an island in this map, and the fleet route surrounds Macau, even passing through the north of Macau.  

This map is copied from the single map (G9231 .S12 1780 .L5) collected in Harvard College Library, which was the No. 134 of Christophe Daniel Ebeling Collection. Ebeling (1741-1817) was a professor at the University of Hamburg and also the curator of the city’s library. The captain and businessman Israel Thorndike (1755-1832) acquired Ebeling’s personal collection and donated it to Harvard University in 1818. 

Reference:

^[1]. Beaglehole, J. C. (1992). The life of Captain James Cook. Stanford, Calif: Stanford Univ. Press.

^[2]. Harvard Libraries. (2014). Ebeling, Christophe Daniel, 1741-1817. Christophe Daniel Ebeling papers, ca. 1790-1818: Guide. Retrieved 2014-07-30, from http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou02444

^[3]. 周湘. (1998). 1805-1815年廣州口岸毛皮貿易, In 蔡鴻生主編, 澳門史與中西交通研究 : 戴裔煊教授九十誕辰紀念文集 (pp234). 廣州: 廣東高等教育出版社.