Inscribed: “To Sir John Borlase Warren Bart K.B. This portrait of His Majesty’s Ship Flora, as leading the Line into Action With Four French Frigates, on St George’s Day 1794. Is most respectfully Inscribed, By his obliged & obedient humble Servant Robt Dodd”; left and right of this “English Force” and “French Force”, with names and guns of ships involved, and “taken” or “escaped” next to each of the French, and in the bottom-left corner “Engraved from an original Picture in the Possession of Sir George Warren Bart”.

‘Flora’ was commanded by John Borlase Warren, who had abandoned an aristocratic background and a place at Cambridge in order to join the navy in 1771, and by 1793 was Commodore of the frigate squadron off the north west French coast assisting in the blockade of Brest. Having been alerted to their presence, Warren sighted three French frigates and a corvette around twenty-five miles south-west of Guernsey as day broke on 23 April 1794; forming a line of battle, he commenced an action that lasted almost three hours and resulted in the surrender of two of the French ships. A third was captured after a chase led by Edward Pellew in the ‘Arethusa’ which lasted into the evening. Following this success, Warren was awarded the Order of the Bath at the end of May.

Here, ‘Flora’ is represented in the foreground, in port-broadside view, exchanging fire with both the French Commodore’s ship, ‘L’Engageante’ and a second one slightly astern. To right, the rest of the British line recedes into the distance, the second in sequence being the ‘Arethusa’, engaged with a third French ship. To left, the fourth member of the French squadron is only partially shown. As ‘Flora’ lost her maintopmast and dropped behind after around forty-five minutes of fighting, the moment depicted is clearly during the action’s first phase.

PAH7858 appears to be a hand-coloured duplicate.

PAH7859 (and PAH7860, an uncoloured duplicate) appear to be pendants, showing ‘Concorde’ engaging and taking ‘Engageante’ later in the day.