A print representing an incident during the French Revolutionary War, following the Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797. It shows Commodore Horatio Nelson on the quarterdeck of the Spanish ship ‘San Josef’, 112 guns, accepting the surrender of the ship’s captain. During the battle, Nelson had initially boarded and captured the ‘San Nicolas’, 80 guns, before proceeding to capture the ‘San Josef’, which had fallen foul of the ‘San Nicolas’. This print was engraved by Daniel Orme after his own painting (see BHC0493 for a full description). It was issued with an accompanying key (see PAI7797). Orme was a miniaturist and engraver, who in 1792 became the impresario of a history painting and print-publishing business. Initially, he worked in collaboration with the American artist Mather Brown, who produced paintings of recent events which Orme then engraved and published, the pair dedicating themselves to the representation of military and naval subjects. Orme referred to his Holles Street exhibition room and print shop as the ‘British Naval and Military Gallery’ and continued to operate under this title after his partnership with Brown dissolved sometime around 1797, at which point Orme took on the role of painter as well as engraver and publisher. The representation of Nelson’s capture of the ‘San Josef’ was one of his first solo projections. He started work on the painting in 1797. This engraving was published on 21 June 1800, by which time the finished painting was on public display at Orme’s ‘British Naval and Military Gallery’. (Note: the Spanish 'San José', captured at Cape St Vincent, is generally if wrongly known in English as 'San Josef', the name under which she was taken into the Navy.) (Updated April 2019.)