After Bermuda’s settlement by the English in 1612, Bermuda was prominently featured in many maps, because it served as a colonial way station. English merchant ships and privateers stopped at Bermuda to re-provision, discharge cargo and passengers, and load colonial products bound for England and the American and West Indian colonies.
This rare map of the northeastern seaboard of America is the first time the name Manhattan was included on a printed map.
This sterling silver mace of the Bermuda Court of Vice Admiralty was made in 1697 by London goldsmith Anthony Nelme, and brought to Bermuda in 1701 by Governor Benjamin Bennett. Bennett, who arrived after a period of lawlessness and weak government, also used the oar in the absence of any other token of his legal supremacy, and it became the ceremonial mace of the Island Council. The Court of Vice Admiralty had jurisdiction over ship and sea related matters, including crimes at sea, piracy, privateering, ship wrecks and other claims against ships and their owners.