A port-bow view of three ships before the wind. The nearest, a flute, has her mizzen set, her headsails loosed in the brails and the sheets of her main course let fly. A merchantman on her starboard beam has fore course and mizzen set while a frigate astern of them is under headsails and mizzen. In the foreground is a smalschip lightly sketched in. A coastline is seen in the distance.

This is attributed to the Elder on the strength of the more lightly sketched ships in undoubted drawings by him of the same period. It is possible, however, this is an early work by the Younger, since the rounder hulls and curving heads of the merchant ships compared with the frigate’s finer lines are particularly well expressed. It is approximately dated by the watermark.