Gabriel Tatton's Maritime Atlas of the East Indies, 1620–1621: Portsmouth Royal Naval Museum, Admiralty Library Manuscript, MSS 352

Abstract

Gabriel Tatton's collection of manuscript charts, now in the Portsmouth Royal Naval Museum (Admiralty Library Manuscript, MSS 352), is the sole surviving example of original marine surveying in the East Indies by the English in the first half of the seventeenth century. The significance of these charts, however, rests on their immediacy as a record of the ships' routes, drawn by the professional chartmaker Gabriel Tatton while on an English East India Company voyage to the Spice Islands, China and Japan, 1620–1621. The English fleet joined forces with ships from the Dutch United East India Company to atttack Spanish and Portuguese vessels off the coast of China. The charts are described and compared with the work of Hessel Gerritsz., hydrographer to the Dutch United East India Company, 1617–1632. The coincidences of the timing of the joint Anglo‐Dutch fleet and of the work of the two chartmakers suggest a close connection. The subsequent history of the collection casts further light on the approaches of the English and Dutch companies to chart making at this time.