The large-scale Compleat Map ... was the definitive map of North Carolina from the time of its publication until the next century, when it continued to be the basis for many subsequent maps of the region.

This extraordinarily accurate and detailed map was included in the British high command's The American Military Atlas. Also known as "The Holster Atlas" because British officers carried it in their holsters, its maps were regarded as the sources of the most essential geographical and topographical information during the Revolution.

The map was produced by John Collet, a young Swiss engineer who joined the British military and became governor of Fort Johnston. You can see a detailed depiction of the fort's batteries at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, just south of the rapidly growing village of Wilmington.