The painting gives a starboard view of the East Indiaman Hotspur leaving the mouth of the River Tyne, in a choppy sea, on her maiden voyage in 1851. Many of her sails are reefed as she runs before the wind across the bows of a heavily reefed ship entering the Tyne on a starboard tack. There is a small rowing boat, manned by four men, in the foreground. The Tynemouth headland, with Tynemouth Castle and the ruins of the Priory, can be seen on the left-hand side of the image. Hotspur is flying various flags from her main mast and stern.

After the East India Company lost its monopoly to trade with the East in 1834 a number of independent merchant vessels entered the trade. Such change allowed ports other than London, and those on the south coast, to engage in the activity. The Hotspur was just such a vessel.

Hotspur and her commander, Captain Toynbee, became well known in Calcutta. In 1864 she covered 328 miles in one day. She was lost in the Madras cyclone of 1872. [Source: H. Parker, catalogue of the Macpherson Collection, inpublished.]

(The painting was loaned to the Department of War Transport at the time of the Second World War where it received a certain amount of unexplained damage in the department's canteen. Curatorial records include correspondence dated to 1945 concerning repair of the painting).

The National Maritime Museum holds a range of logbooks for the Hotspur including one dated 6 Aug 1867 to 7 Feb 1868 and kept by Midshipman F.A. Brabant on a voyage from London to Calcutta and back [NAI/3/16]. A further logbbok was kept by Midshipman (later Capt) Warren Frederic Caborne (d.1924) for the following voyages - London to Calcutta, Aug-Nov 1865; Calcutta to London Jan-May 1866; London to Calcutta Aug-Dec 1866; Calcutta to London Feb-May 1867; and Calcutta to London Nov 1868-Apr 1869 [LOG/M/78]. Finally another logbook was kept by Midshipman W.S. Hodgkinson on a voyage of the Hotspur from London to Calcutta and back in 1861-62 [LOG/M/48].