Along with Peter Monamy, who was twenty years his senior, Scott ranks as one of the two leaders in the first generation of English marine painters after the Van de Veldes and other painters who came to London in the 1670s. He carried out commissions of the actions of the War of Jenkin's Ear and the Seven Years War, but his reputation now largely rests on his views of the Thames which reveal his admiration of the work of Canaletto. It is possible that this extremely rapid pen and ink drawing may relate to a work such as the 'Coast scene with a rocky arch' in the collection of the Duke of Northumberland.