This print is the final image in the series of etchings entitled ‘Midshipman Blockhead, the Progress of a Midshipman exemplified in the career of Master Blockhead’. It is one of two plates added when the ‘Midshipman Blockhead’ series was re-issued by Thomas McLean in 1835 (see also PAD4829). Both additions were made in a different format from the eight original plates: much smaller and portrait rather than landscape.

The image gives an exaggerated, imaginary view of the North Pole, as the crew of a ship cheer a sailor on in his quest to climb a very long ‘pole’ to raise the Union Flag. The subject of the North Pole does not relate in an obvious way to the preceding images in the series, although this closing image suggests that exploring the world, and even reaching the ‘top of the world’ (a feat that was not achieved until the twentieth century), could be the pinnacle of a sailor’s career.