This image depicts the naval ship 'Hussar' in a rough sea entering Portsmouth, in some distress, with water pouring out of the starboard open gunports. The ship is under reduced rig and a cutter is linked to the stern by ropes and two hawsers through the cabin windows. Perhaps these hawsers were linked to the steering gear so the cutter could be used as an improvised rudder. The Hussar has its lower course sails raised on the main and fore masts and the cutter has all its sails out, as both run before the following wind.

On the right of the picture, the fortifications of Southsea Castle are depicted. There are four figures on the shore. The western shoreline, presumably Gosport, can be seen in the distance.

'Hussar' later ran aground on Ile de Sein, Brittany, 8 February 1804, en route from Betanzos, Spain to Ushant, with dispatches for Sir Edward Pellew. Next day the crew landed: Lieutenants Henry Thomas Lutwidge and Barker with marines and seamen impounded the local boats to prevent alarm being raised and on 11 Feb, after setting the ship on fire, they all left in 13 fishing boats and 'Husssar's' cutter but ran into bad weather. Captain Wilkinson's party were recovered by HM ship 'Sirius' but the remainder of the crew were driven ashore and imprisoned, the men at Givet on the Belgian border and the officers at Verdun. Lutwidge (c. 1780-1861) was a prisoner for ten years, February 1804-May 1814. In 1802 he had spent three months in Winchester jail after accidentally causing the death of a drunken seaman at Portsmouth. He was nephew of Nelson's early captain in the'Carcass' on the Phipps Arctic expedition of 1773, Skeffington Lutwidge, and great uncle of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ('Lewis Carroll'): see Marion Davis, 'The Curious Case of Lieutenant Lutwidge' in 'Ancestors' (Sept 2004) pp. 14-19.