This is the foundation map of New England cartography in an early state, the one that gave it its name and the first devoted to the region. This example is in the fifith state (of nine) dating to c.1626. “All states are rare but particularly the early ones” (Burden). It covers the area from the present Penobscot Bay in Maine, to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. After a period of inactivity following his Virginian escapades, Captain John Smith was invited by four London merchants to explore the coastline of north Virginia (New England as it was then known). These men, Buley, Langham, Roydon and Skelton, financed two ships that sailed in March 1614 with instructions to return with a profitable cargo. Smith made a good crossing in six weeks, arriving off Monhegan Island near the Kennebec estuary. By now the waters of New England, particularly Maine, were visited by dozens of English and French fishing vessels a year. One of Smith’s vessels concentrated on catching fish and collecting other valuable commodities. Smith continued down the coast to chart and explore, lamenting the poor quality of existing maps: ‘[he] had six or seauen seuerall plots of those Northern parts, so unlike each to other, and most so differing from any true proportion, or resemblance of the Countrey, as they did mee no more good, then so much waste paper, though they cost me more’. Naming Plymouth Rock he described the place as ‘an excellent good harbour, good lands, and no want of anything but industrious people’. This proved the incentive six years later for the ‘Mayflower’ Pilgrims to relocate here after their first choice proved unwise. In mid July after just six weeks Smith returned to England. It is remarkable that in this short time he managed to glean so much of the coastline. Indeed, the amount of work that is actually his own has been called into question by some. entitled. This he carried to London and published in June 1616. To accompany his work ‘A Description of New England’ Smith had Simon van de Passe engrave a map of his surveys. The young Prince Charles provided much of the nomenclature, most of which does not survive today. The notable exceptions are the River Charles and Plimouth. The book was successful, not least because America was very popular at the time. Rebecca Rolfe, otherwise known as Pocahontas, was in London causing quite a stir. During its life the plate was changed numerous times, creating nine recorded states. States 1 and 2 properly belong to the Description. Sabin quotes the Generall Historie as evidence that it was included in some copies of New Englands Trails, 1620. By now Smith was becoming unpopular and the book was probably unsuccessful. This is reflected in the fact that only four examples of the book have survived. It was used again in all editions of The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England and the Summer Isles, Smith’s Advertisements of 1631 and the three issues of the atlas Historia Mundi. References: Burden no. 187 st. 9; Church no. 369; Cumming p. 79; Cumming, Skelton and Quinn pp. 276-9 & 290-2; Deák nos. 19 & 26; Fite and Freeman pp. 124-7; Paine pp. 181-99; Sabin nos. 82819, 82823 & 82833; Schwartz and Ehrenberg pp. 96-9; Stokes & Haskell B9 pp. 4-5; Suárez pp. 127-9.