An incident during the Seven Years War, 1756-63, between France and Britain. 1759 was a year of victories for Britain and on 26 June Admiral Sir Charles Saunders' powerful fleet, which had conveyed Major-General James Wolfe's land forces to Canada, anchored off the Ile d'Orleans on the St Lawrence River, below Quebec. At midnight on 28 June the French attacked with seven fire-ships and two fire-rafts. Saunders had received advance warning and the boats of the fleet were sent out loaded with his men, who grappled the fire-vessels and towed them safely clear of his ships. On 13 September Wolfe's infantry were landed in boats below the Heights of Abraham and scaled them during the night to reach the plateau outside the city. There they defeated the French army of the Marquis de Montcalm, in a set-piece battle of which both Wolfe and Montcalm were the leading casualties. On 18 September the city capitulated, marking the beginning of the end for the French colonies in North America. Within the year mainland Canada was completely in British hands.

The left-hand side of the picture is taken up with fire-ships and all seven are shown. In the foreground a fire-ship is burning fiercely, in starboard-quarter view, with the smoke and flames blowing down towards the British fleet. Among the fire-ships are the boats of the fleet getting lines aboard them. On the right the British lie at anchor with Saunders' flagship the 'Stirling Castle', in port-bow view in the foreground. Immediately astern of her a ship appears to have cut her cable and is heading downstream. The whole effect is dark, the scene lit almost entirely by the flames of the burning fire-ships.

Scott belonged to the first generation of British marine painters, who worked in the tradition of the van de Veldes and the other Dutch artists who came to practice in London from the 1670s. His reputation chiefly rests on his topographical views of London but he was a very good marine painter, who accepted commissions like this and whose artistic and social skills eclipsed - at least in business terms- those of his slightly earlier contemporary Peter Monamy. He was notably averse to travelling by sea himself but produced many small drawings and watercolours to be incorporated later as details into his oils, such as men rowing and unloading boats, and often drew his ships from models.