There was a private controversy regarding the publication of the map of the Commissioners' Plan. Randel had begun to prepare a map to go to the engraver, using his original papers, when he found out that the council had given William Bridges, another of the handful of city-recognized surveyors, the right to do so. Bridges simply copied one of Randel's previously published maps, which were in the public domain, without access to the supporting material Randel had accumulated, introducing errors as he did so, some of them possibly intentional, since he was legally bound not to copy the map exactly. Bridges published and copyrighted the resulting map as a private venture, leaving Randel out in the cold: his name did not appear anywhere on Bridges' map.