BISHOP, Robert. Original Charts of the Gulf & Windward Passages, Old Straits of Bahama, &c. London: Robert Laurie and James Whittle, 1796 (cover title).

Rare, separately issued set of three handsome sailing charts of the Caribbean, each with decorative cartouches and dedications to the Lords of the Admiralty (the last specifically to George Pocock, Admiral of the Blue, who captured Havana in 1762).
Comprising:
1. An Accurate Draught of the Gulph-Passage from Jamaica with the West-end of Cuba. Engraved by Bowen. With inset coastal elevations and an inset map of the Cayman Islands.
2. An Accurate Draught of the Windward Passage from Jamaica, with the French Part of Hispaniola &c. Dated 1794. With large inset map of Jamaica.
3. An Accurate Draught of the Old Straits of Bahama. Dated May 1794. With large inset view of Havana.

Charting the principal sea lanes of the late eighteenth-century Caribbean—the Gulf Passage, Windward Passage, and Old Bahama Channel—these charts map the vital arteries through which commerce, imperial power, and communication flowed. Issued as a rare, separately published set, they survive not as atlas sheets but as working tools of navigation, complete with coastal profiles, inset anchorages, and practical sailing detail, underscoring their use at sea. Produced amid the upheavals of the 1790s—from the Haitian Revolution to the maritime conflicts of the French Revolutionary Wars—they capture a moment when these established routes continued to carry trade and fleets even as the imperial order that depended on them was acutely strained.

Three engraved charts, on two joined sheets each, overall 725 x 1110mm (paper size). Each backed with blue paper and folded in quarters. Blue paper self-wrappers, printed paper cover label (backstrip starting to split).