In the foreground an Indiaman is shown broadside, to port. It flies the red ensign from the stern as well as short pennants to indicate that it is a merchant ship. There is a figurehead of a golden carved lion on the bow and there are three stern lanterns. The deck is crowded with sailors involved in the process of tacking. The ship is either 'in stays' (hovering in the eye of the wind) or briefly hove to with her foresails shivering. On the left a similar East Indiaman is depicted in the foreground with three other merchant vessels in the middle distance. On the horizon a British fleet on the left, including one flying the flag of a rear-admiral, appears to be in chase of a French one, flying white Bourbon colours on the right: this too appears to include an admiral and rear-admiral from the flags shown. The lead British vessel is firing one of he bow chase guns at the fleeing enemy. The painting is therefore one recording the presence of the main ship in the foreground at a particular incident, though what this was is not now recorded. The fact that the artist has shown the foreground ships basking on a sea in a calm glow, with the chase very distant, suggests they were more witnesses than participants.

Swaine was a painter and draughtsman who worked as a messenger in the Navy Office in 1735. He was practising as a marine painter by the late 1740s, and regularly exhibited in the Free and Incorporated Societies of Artists from 1761. His work was an interpretation of formulae made popular in England by Willem van de Velde the Younger' but show an informed knowledge of English shipping.