Plate 5 of 8 (with two additional plates):
Mr B and his fellow sailors have boarded a French ship and a vicious fight has broken out. The attack from the British party with axes and swords is countered with spears and muskets used by the French. The smoke of cannon fire also obscures many of the British faces. Master B has pierced a French sailor in the chest while a larger man to his side fends off another attacker who is trying to spike him. Master B is now older, wiser and proving himself a good swordsman and comrade.

Inscribed below the print, lines from Lord Byron’s ‘The Corsair’:
‘the pulse's maddening play / That thrills the wanderer of the trackless way / That for it self can woo the approaching fight / And turn what some deem danger to delight / No dread of death, if with us die our foes / Save that it seems e'en duller than repose.'

Related to: BM Reg number 1891, 1117.28 The Life of a Midshipman' by Captain Frederick Marryat, (1820) Seeking the bubble reputation.

Other versions of this image in the collection are: PAD4812, PAD4725, PAI5983, PAI6569, PAJ1833.