Draft of a bridge for a planned fortress on Crab Island

Title Leupe: Plan en profil van de nieuwe geprojecteerde redoute, op het Grabbe Yland aan de mond van Rio de Berbice.

This profile is part of a plan for a fort on the Crab Island.

A plan similar to this one had already been designed to no avail by P.M. Osterlin before 1735 (see VEL1611). The notion of placing a fort on Crab Island had, however, not been entirely abandoned. Following sustained pressure from private planters in Berbice, the directors finally turned, in 1738, to the Society of Surinam with the request that the French engineer, Pierre-Dominique Desmaretz, then responsible for the construction of Fort Nieuw Amsterdam, be seconded to Berbice for some time so that he could come up with a new plan for the fortification of the island. Desmarestz travelled there the following year and produced the plan of which this draft is a part.

This is a sketch of the bridge of the fortress, shown from the side and front.

Despite the reduction in cost achieved in comparison to the previous plan, even this version was found to be too expensive and so, as in the past, Crab Island remained unfortified.

Scale-bar of 50 Rhineland rods = 126 ‘strepen’.