Half-hour watch indicator, in painted wood with carved floral decorations. It bears a painted inscription below the face: 'La Ville de Paris / 12th April / 1782'. There is also a low-relief image of a sand-glass above the 12-hour dial, which is marked in Roman numerals. The English date form of '12th April' shows this is a commemorative addition. The whole item was reportedly removed from the break of the poop of the 'Ville de Paris', the Comte de Grasse's French flagship captured at the Battle of the Saints on 12 April 1782, in the West Indies. There is no mechanism, the single dial hand being moved on manually every time the half-hour glass used to mark the watches of ship's time was turned, so everyone who could see roughly what this was. If from De Grasse's 'Ville de Paris', it must have been removed as a trophy shortly after capture, since that ship foundered in the Atlantic later in 1782 while returning to England as a prize. The British subsequently built another of the same name, but whether this item had any connection with it is unknown and the style suggests it is probably French. It came to Greenwich in the dispersal of the Royal United Service Institution Museum collection in 1963 and was no. 2355 in the 1932 edition of their catalogue. [PvdM 3/19]