Map of a casemate for a planned fortress on Crab Island

Title Leupe: Profil eener Cazematte van het geprojecteerde Dessin over de versterking van 't Crabben Eyland in 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). That did not mean, however, that the notion of placing a fort on Crab Island had 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. Desmaretz travelled there the following year and developed the plan shown here.

This is a profile of the casemate of the fortress, with the rest of the fort drawn too together with its foundation and an indication of the waterlevel at high tide.

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

Scale-bar of 7 Rhineland rods = 325 ‘strepen’.