(Updated, July 2023)The following is inscribed at the bottom of the print 'Vu du cote du Nord. Reduit de la Collection des Ports d Angleterre dessines par Milton et graves par Suntach l'anne 1788'. This roughly translates as -'Seen from from the North. Taken from the collection of prints of English ports designed by Milton and engraved by Suntach in the year 1788.'

The Milton series was published in the 1750s: Deptford, Woolwich, and Portsmouth in 1753-4; Sheerness, Chatham, and Plymouth (which had shipping attributed to John Cleveley the elder) in 1755-6. All were engraved by Pierre Canot, and there is a query over the nature of the involvement of Thomas Milton (1742/3 - 1827). While his name was prominent on them as dedicator/publisher and artist for most he was only a boy at the time, assuming (as usually the case) that he was the son of John Milton (active c.1743-76), whose name (I. Milton) appears on that of Chatham as surveyor and delineator, unless this is just engraver error. The slightly ambiguous inscription here is naming Suntach, who worked in France, as the later copyist from the Milton original.