The 'Hermione' dominates the centre of the image, with the 'Favourite' in the distance on the left and the 'Active' on the right. The cliffs in the right background are likely to be the Cape St. Vincent, southern Portugal.

Inscribed: ‘To Captain SAWYER, and Captain POWNALL, this View of the Hermione, a Spanish Register Ship is most Humbly Inscribed by their most Obed. Servt. R. WRIGHT. This immensely rich Prize was taken off Cape St. Vincent, May 31, 1762, by his Majesty’s Frigate the Active, and the Favourite Sloop of War, and reckoned worth a Million Sterling. Her Money and Plate was landed at Portsmouth and conveyed to London in Twenty Waggons [sic], escorted by a Party of Light Horse; and it is remarkable that the Tower Guns were firing on account of the Birth of the Prince of Wales, the Waggons [sic] were going by St. James’s Gate. The Hermione was a Spanish Frigate of War of Twenty four Guns, draughted by an English Builder at Cadiz, and was the Ship that fired several Broadsides into the Antigallican when she lay there, with her value-able French Prize, which was detained by the most unjust Proceedings of the Spaniards'

The 'Hermione', Spanish frigate, was inward bound from Lima with a cargo of bullion, cocoa and tin worth about £510,000 at the time (or £70 million today) having left without knowing of the outbreak of hostilities in what became formally the Seven Years War in 1763. She was intercepted off Cadiz by the frigate 'Active' and sloop 'Favourite', who rapidly took her. The two British captains became immensely rich by the capture and even seamen in their crews immediately made the equivalent of 30 years pay. It remains the richest single prize ever taken by the Navy. A Spanish 18th-century silver-gilt dish now in the collection of the Museu Quinta das Cruzes, Funchal, Madeira (Joao Wetzler bequest, MQC1629) commemorates the action, having been engraved as follows: 'Taken in the Hermione / a Spanish Register Ship / by Captns Herbert Sawyer in His / Majesty's Ship the Active and / Philemon Pownell [sic] in His / Majesty's Ship the Favourite / May 21st [sic] / 1762'. The variant of the usual spelling of 'Pownoll' is less curious than the discrepancy of date, but the script looks contemporary. It appears to have been after the distribution of the 'Hermione' prize money that carousing sailors were seen frying silver watches purchased with their share. [PvdM 9/16]