Plan du Port de Bombay

A posthumously maintained chart

Jean-Baptiste d’Après de Mannevillette’s Neptune Oriental first appeared in 1745 and was enlarged in 1775. After his death, the French naval hydrographic office continued to update and reissue its charts. This page represents the 1810 Dépôt Général de la Marine issue, not a chart newly drawn by Mannevillette in that year.

The harbour as measured water

The plan is organised by the needs of navigation: soundings, shoals, channels, anchorages, coastal forms and explanatory remarks. Bombay’s urban and territorial significance is secondary to the safe movement of a ship through its approaches.

The gaze

The map belongs simultaneously to hydrographic science and geopolitical rivalry. A French officer could use it to navigate a British harbour because maritime knowledge crossed political boundaries even while serving commerce and war. India is encountered here as depth, bearing and landfall.