The lithograph shows a bow port-quarter view of the 38-gun HMS Hydra very close to the Catalan coast. Although her sails are unfurled, they are hanging loose and the sea is calm, as her starboard guns fire on the port of Bagur on 7th August 1807. A 13th century fort dominates the hill over-looking the port and defensive watchtowers can be seen on the cliff headland and at the narrow entrance of the harbour. The masts of small local, lateen-rig vessels and possibly a naval vessel can be seen in the harbour. On Hydra’s sheltered port side, two naval cutters are being rowed away, crammed with armed military men.
The commander of the Hydra from 1803 was George Mundy, one of Collingwood’s active frigate commanders in harrying the post-Trafalgar French fleet along the Spanish coast. In August 1807, Mundy encountered a flotilla of Spanish supply ships, protected by two French naval sloops, in the gulf of Rosas. They ran for the narrow little harbour of Bagur (the modern spelling appears to be Begur). Mundy, with great daring, went in so close to the coast that the barrels of the guns in the fort and watchtowers could not be lowered enough to hit the Hydra.
Mundy ordered Lt Edward O’Brien Drury to take two boats of marines and scale the cliffs. This they successfully did, capturing the fort and then entering the harbour to take French sloops and the local vessels.