|
||
|
|
|
|
This 18th-century map of Lake Ontario was engraved by Thomas Kitchin for Thomas Mante’s History of North America."
The map illustrates the lake’s geography, key fortifications, and important waterways, including the Niagara River, Oswego, Fort Frontenac (Kingston), and the entrance to the St. Lawrence River The map was produced to illustrate the strategic importance Lake Ontario held during the French and Indian War (1754–1763), as it was a key battleground between British and French forces vying for dominance in North America.
Lake Ontario was a crucial military and logistical artery during the war, serving as the primary water route between the interior of North America and the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence River. Control of the lake allowed the French to move troops, supplies, and trade goods between their strongholds in Quebec and the Ohio Valley. For the British, securing Lake Ontario was essential to cutting off French supply lines, launching invasions into New France, and protecting their western settlements.
Several fortresses and settlements along the lake played pivotal roles in the war. The French-controlled Fort Frontenac (modern-day Kingston, Ontario) was a key supply base and naval station, while Fort Niagara at the mouth of the Niagara River controlled access between Lake Ontario and the Great Lakes. On the British side, Fort Oswego served as a strategic outpost for launching expeditions into French territory.
Major Battles and Engagements on Lake Ontario
-
Battle of Fort Oswego (1756) – In August 1756, a French force under General Montcalm, supported by Lake Ontario’s French naval fleet, besieged and captured Fort Oswego, destroying the British presence on the lake and solidifying French control. This was a significant blow to British operations, as Oswego had been their main base for launching attacks into New France.
-
Battle of Fort Frontenac (1758) – In August 1758, British forces under Colonel John Bradstreet launched a surprise raid on Fort Frontenac, destroying French supplies and crippling their ability to control the lake. The capture of Fort Frontenac was a turning point, allowing the British to gain naval superiority and disrupt French logistics.
-
Siege of Fort Niagara (1759) – One of the most decisive battles on Lake Ontario occurred in July 1759, when British General John Prideaux and his Native American allies laid siege to Fort Niagara, a key French stronghold controlling access between Lake Ontario and the western Great Lakes. The fort surrendered after several weeks of bombardment, cutting off French communication and reinforcing British dominance in the region.
The British victories at Fort Frontenac and Fort Niagara secured their control of Lake Ontario and the surrounding region, effectively isolating French forces in the Ohio Valley and Montreal. By 1760, the British had fully secured the lake, paving the way for the final conquest of New France. The loss of Lake Ontario as a strategic corridor contributed directly to France’s defeat in North America and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, which ended the war and ceded French territories in Canada to Britain.
Thomas Mante
Thomas Mante’s History of the Late War in North America (1772) is a detailed account of the French and Indian War (1754–1763), focusing on military campaigns and geopolitical developments. Mante, a British army officer and historian, offers a firsthand perspective on key events and battles, including Braddock’s defeat, the capture of Louisbourg, and the pivotal Battle of Quebec. His narrative emphasizes British strategy and leadership while critiquing colonial and military mismanagement.
The book is notable for its inclusion of detailed maps illustrating the theaters of war, providing essential context for military operations. Mante’s work is one of the earliest comprehensive histories of the conflict, blending analysis with firsthand observation, and remains a valuable resource for understanding the complexities of the struggle for dominance in North America.
Rarity
Mante's History of the Late War in North America is rare on the market, and the maps almost never appear separately.
This is the first example of this map we have seen on the market.
Thomas Kitchin was a British cartographer and engraver. Born in Southwark, England, Kitchin was the eldest of several children. He was apprenticed to the map engraver Emanuel Bowen from 1732 to 1739, and he married Bowen’s daughter, Sarah, in December 1739. By 1741 Kitchin was working independently and in 1746 he began taking on apprentices at his firm. His son Thomas Bowen Kitchin was apprenticed to him starting in 1754. By 1755 Kitchin was established in Holborn Hill, where his firm produced all kinds of engraved materials, including portraits and caricatures. He married his second wife, Jane, in 1762. Beginning in 1773 Kitchin was referred to as Hydrographer to the King, a position his son also later held. He retired to St. Albans and continued making maps until the end of his life.
A prolific engraver known for his technical facility, clean lettering, and impressive etched decorations, Kitchin produced several important works throughout his career. He produced John Elphinstone’s map of Scotland in 1746, and the first pocket atlas of Scotland, Geographia Scotiae, in 1748/1749. He co-published The Small English Atlas in 1749 with another of Bowen’s apprentices, Thomas Jefferys. He produced The Large English Atlas serially with Emanuel Bowen from 1749 to 1760. The latter was the most important county atlas since the Elizabethan era, and the first real attempt to cover the whole country at a large scale. In 1755 Kitchin engraved the important John Mitchell map of North America, which was used at the peace treaties of Paris and Versailles. In 1770 he produced the twelve-sheet road map England and Wales and in 1769–70 he produced Bernhard Ratzer’s plans of New York. In 1783, he published The Traveller’s Guide through England and Wales.
Thomas Mante (bapt. 1733, d. c. 1802), army officer, historian, and sometime intelligence agent, was baptized Thomas Mant on 3 December 1733 at St Faith’s, Havant, Hampshire. He was the eldest of eight children born to Thomas Mant, an estate manager, and Mary Bingham, daughter of the church historian Joseph Bingham and his wife Dorothea Pococke. Nothing is known of his early education or training, but he began his military career on 25 June 1756 as a senior second lieutenant in the Royal Marines.
During the Seven Years’ War, Mante transferred to the 56th company of Marines in 1759 and participated in the major West Indies campaigns of 1759 and 1762. He served as one of seventeen assistant engineers under the Earl of Albemarle during the siege of Havana in 1762, and by June of that year had obtained a commission as a lieutenant in the 77th Regiment of Foot. That regiment departed Havana for New York in August 1762, but was disbanded the following year as part of postwar reductions. Mante, however, remained in North America: in 1763 he joined Colonel Henry Bouquet’s campaign against the forces of Pontiac, and in 1764 served as brigade major in Colonel John Bradstreet’s expedition to the western Great Lakes.
Placed on half-pay in 1765, Mante spent the next eight years in London. He sought appointments—most ambitiously, as lieutenant-governor of a proposed colony in Detroit—but failed to secure political support. He relied increasingly on borrowed funds and fell out with both John Bradstreet and Sir Charles Gould. During this period, he was employed by John Robinson at the Treasury to provide intelligence in anticipation of a renewed Anglo-French conflict. On 29 June 1769 he married Mary Silver at North Hayling, near his family’s home in Havant.
Mante’s literary career began in this first London period. Between 1770 and 1772 he completed four military works: three translations of treatises on tactics from the French school of Joly de Maizeroy—A Treatise on the Use of Defensive Arms (1770), Elementary Principles of Tactics (1771), and the two-volume System of Tactics (1781)—and his major historical achievement, The History of the Late War in North America (1772). This last work, issued with a suite of folding maps, drew on his own military experience and is still regarded as a valuable contemporary account of the Seven Years’ War. He changed the spelling of his name from “Mant” to “Mante” between 1770 and 1772, and used it consistently thereafter.
In 1773, Mante moved permanently to Dieppe, Normandy, where he had lived intermittently since 1769. He had been recruited by the Jacobite exile Jean-Charles-Adolphe Grant de Blairfindy to provide military intelligence to the French ministry of war. Though on the French payroll for a time, his payments ceased in 1774 amid suspicions that he was a double agent. Nonetheless, he remained in France, serving briefly as an excise officer and then attempting to operate an estate for raising British sheep. This project failed, and in 1778 he was imprisoned for debt. That same year, he published Traité des prairies artificielles, des enclos, et de l’éducation des moutons de race angloise, a treatise on English methods of sheep husbandry, which received formal approval from Louis XVI and was dedicated to Benjamin Franklin, then serving as American ambassador in Paris.
Released from prison in early 1781, Mante returned to London in poor health and near destitution. Rejected by his former associates, he found support from the publisher Thomas Hookham, who issued two of his novels, Lucinda and The Siege of Aubigny, in 1781–82. These were paraphrases of French originals. His final project was an ambitious Naval and Military History of the Wars of England, published in multiple volumes between c.1795 and 1807. He personally authored the early volumes and most of volumes five and six, which covered the wars of 1714–1771. Volume seven was only partially completed by him and finished by another hand; volume eight was written posthumously by an anonymous editor. Between 1800 and 1801 he also contributed nineteen essays, titled “Retrospect of the eighteenth century,” to The Gentleman’s Magazine. He died around 1802, still at work on his history.
Substantially based on the ODNB entry.
