This is one of a set of three small was drawings (PAD8838, 8839 and 8840) showing the use of Manby's mortar apparatus for throwing a light line to a ship wrecked close to shore, as the basis for establishing a stronger link to rescue the crew. They may just be studies for different treatments, since while PAD8839 and 8840 might be a pair, the third (this one) is of a different setting and ship. It shows the firing of the mortar, with the line paying out from its careful prior arrangement on the beach to avoid tangling. Pocock exhibited two larger watercolours of the subject at the Old Watercolour Society in 1811, of which NMM PAJ2786 appears to be the second, as well as two oil paintings of other incidents using Manby's apparatus at the Royal Academy in 1815: these were painted for Manby and are now in the Castle Museum, Norwich. The inventor George William Manby (1765-1854) was a Norfolk man, and a school-fellow and friend of Nelson. His younger brother Thomas also joined the Navy and rose to rear-admiral but George was trained for the artillery at the Royal Academy, Woolwich, though he instead became a captain in the Cambridgeshire Militia. From 1803 he was barrack master at Great Yarmouth where in 1807 he saw a small naval vessel, the 'Snipe', wrecked within sixty yards of the shore with huge loss of life. It occurred to him that rescue in such a case required a rapid physical link with the shore, so he borrowed a small military mortar fom the Board of Ordnance and devised a means of using it to fire a rescue-line from the shore. It was first attempted in earnest, and successfully, when the brig 'Elizabeth' was wrecked at Yarmouth on 12 February 1808, just as Manby was first promoting his invention's official approval: this was rapid, bringing him widespread fame and various awards. When small rockets became reliable, they replaced line-throwing mortars, but Manby - who also devoted attention to improvement of lifeboats - was a pioneer of lifesaving by this means. [PvdM 10/08]