The only extant first edition of Captain Peter Heywood's survey of Macau (Macao) and Taipa. The most important survey of the waters, since Captain Bligh's (of Bounty Mutiny fame) chart of 1778-1779.

The chart covers Macau's inner harbor and isthmus, together with Colane and Dahengqin Islands. Though the focal point of the chart is Taipa (Typa) Island, which was used by the East Indian Company as an anchorage point for ships en route to Canton (Guangzhou). "The Typa" (Taipa) refers to both the island, here labelled Kaikong, and the passage between it and Mackkareenra Island, today part of Hengqin. The chart provides numerous soundings, and illustrates in detail the route from Macao's inner harbor through the narrow channel between Mackkareera and Typa Ka Brado (Kaikong). It also shows the best route in order to avoid the two large rocks that plagued ships navigating into Macao Harbor, Pedra Meo and Pedra Areeka. It also notes the 'Best Track in and out,' not to Macao, but to EIC anchorage points in the Typa.

The survey was carried out by Captain Heywood (1772-1831), in 1804, whilst his ship the HMS 'La Dedaigneuse' had put in for repairs in Macau, having lost it's mast during a typhoon. The survey would remain unpublished until 1809, when the chart was engraved by Benjamin Smith and published by Laurie and Whittle.

The published chart shows Heywood's considerable skills as a surveyor, who was evidently well tutored by Captain Bligh when he served under him as midshipman on HMS 'Bounty'. Indeed he was mentioned by Bligh, along with Fletcher Christian as officers of great promise, before both became complicit in the mutiny. During the famous mutiny his behaviour was ambiguous. Despite his own claims to being asleep when it happened, he knew of Fletcher Christian's plans to desert and did not show himself sufficiently loyal to Bligh to avoid later trial. He did not wish to join Bligh when the latter was cast adrift in the over-crowded ship's launch and, with the loyalists for whom there was also no room, went to Tahiti with the ship. They remained there when the hard core of mutineers sought remoter refuge in the 'Bounty', eventually on Pitcairn Island. On the arrival of the pursuing frigate 'Pandora', Heywood immediately joined her but – with the rest of those that Captain Edwards swept up on Tahiti – he was brutally and indiscriminately treated as a mutineer. Four of the group, unable to escape in time from "Pandora's box" – the special cell on deck in which they were confined - were drowned when 'Pandora' was herself wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef. In 1792 the survivors were tried by court-martial at Spithead and Heywood was condemned to death. He was, however, well defended and well-connected, and obtained a Royal Pardon through the interest of Lord Chatham and was reinstated in his career. In the early 1800s he was stationed out in the Far East, and was responsible for several notable surveys. He would later be stationed in South America and Mediterranean, where he carried out numerous further surveys.

Heywood's surveying work was held in such high esteem that in 1818 he was offered the position as Admiralty Hydrographer; he declined with the position being filled by the renowned Francis Beaufort. In 1830, his step daughter Diana would marry Captain Edward Belcher, who would continue the fine surveying tradition of his father-in-law, with the surveying of Hong Kong in 1843.