Rare set of sailing directions for the whole of the Eastern Seaboard, from Halifax to Havana.

The sources for the pilot are carefully laid out on the work's title page, with the coast from Nova Scotia to Cape Cod drawn from, among others, Captain Samuel Holland, Governor Pownall, and Benjamin Franklin, together with the "most experienced masters and pilots".

The directions from New York to St Augustin are the work of George Walker "late master in the coasting and West-India Trade, out of the port of Philadelphia and formerly a Lieutenant and Commander in the service of His Britannic Majesty". Little is known of George Walker. The first edition of the pilot (dated 1799) states that he was late Commander of HMS Cornwallis, a ship he commanded during the 1780s. Most likely he emigrated to Philadelphia in the late 1780s or early 1790s, where he began a successful career trading from Philadelphia to the Caribbean. By the time the current edition was published, George Walker had passed away, as he is referred to as the "late master in coasting and the West-India trade". The final contributor is Joseph Dessiou (1743-1822), sailor and surveyor, a long term friend of the hydrographer John Hamilton Moore, who introduced him to Laurie and Whittle in the early 1800s; Dessiou produced a chart of North America for them in 1805, and would continue working for them until the late 1810s.

The present, 1809, edition has been greatly expanded, with the text reset and revised from the 1806 edition: from 49 pages - as collated by Sabin - to 93 pages.

Laurie and Whittle

The foundation of the partnership of Robert Laurie (1755-1836) and James Whittle (1757-1818) was the existing stock of Robert Sayer's printing plates, both for maps and atlases and also decorative prints. Laurie had originally been apprenticed to Robert Sayer in 1770, and was made free in 1777. He was a skilled artist, who exhibited at the Society of Artists from 1770, winning a silver palette for a drawing in 1770, and he was also an accomplished engraver of mezzotint portraits and produced views and other decorative items. In about 1792 he returned to the Sayer business and took it over from the ailing Sayer in 1794. Whittle was apprenticed into the Needlemakers' Company, evidently made free by 1792, and joined with Laurie to take over the Sayer business in 1794. Laurie retired in 1812. His son Richard Holmes Laurie replaced him in the partnership and, eventually, took over the firm after Whittle's death in 1818. Presumably under the influence of Richard Holmes Laurie, the partnership became noted as chartmakers and publishers, with the business existing to the current day as Imray, Laurie, Norie and Wilson Ltd.

Rarity

Although Sabin records nine institutional examples in the UK and America, we are unaware of any example dated 1809. We are only able to trace one example - dated 1799 - appearing at auction since the war.