Print entitled 'Blackwall', from Dodd's 'Dockyard' set of six (1789-90), with the subtitle: 'This View was taken at the Launch of the Bombay Castle, a 74 Gun Ship. Built at the Expence of the Honble East India Company and presented by them to his Majesty'. Text then follows in two columns: ' Blackwall is the most eminent place on the River Thames for Building & equipping Ships, for the service of the Honble. East India Company. The Dockyard has been Consider'd as the East India Yard from the Year 1688, and is at this time more capacious than any other private Yard in the Kingdom, or probably in the World, having 7 launches [building slips] fit for Line of Battle Ships, and many have been built there from [second column] the Year 1654 to the Year 1784, when four Ships of 74 Guns each, two of 44 Guns, an East India Ship, and a West India Ship, were upon the Stocks together. There is also dry Docks for four large Ships, a wet Dock. Mast Houses, Store houses, and every other Convenience; and an Extensive Rope Walk adjoining to it. - - Publish'd March 25th 1789 by Jno & Jos[ep]h Boydell, No. 90, Cheapside, London'. The oil painting on which this print is based is recorded in a web image (wiki commons) though not its location.

Dodd did two series of dockyard and seaport prints, easily confused in image terms. The early and slightly smaller unnumbered Royal Dockyard set was published by Boydell, comprising Blackwall (though not a Royal yard but see below) and Deptford (PAH9746) issued on 25 March 1789; Woolwich (PAH9725) and Chatham (PAH9714) on 29 October 1789; Plymouth (PAH9767) on 1 September 1790 and Portsmouth (PAH9742) on 1 November 1790. The larger numbered ones in a series called 'a Collection of the Sea Ports & of the River Thames' were published by Freeman on 4 June 1793: no.1 Greenwich (PAI7098 from his 1792 oil, BHC3867), no. 2 Limehouse (PAI7128), no. 3 a view of the river and shipping near the Tower of London (not in NMM: copy in BM), and no. 4 Dover (PAI7087).

While Blackwall was a civilian yard, it built many navy ships and Dodd's view of it (PAH9724), published with that of Deptford in March 1789, shows the launch of the 74-gun 'Bombay Castle', a warship built for the Navy as a gift of the East India Company. This, and to make a projected set of six rather than five, is presumably why it was included in the otherwise naval dockyard group. [PvdM 10/05, amended 1/16]