Technique includes etching. An engraved version of the story of which the better known image is West's oil painting of 'Nelson and the bear' recording his attempt to kill a polar bear during Captain Phipps's Arctic expedition of 1773. The musket misfired and nelson was only saved by the fact that he was separated from the bear by a fissure in the ice, and a warning shot form the ship scaring it off. In this version however the boy maks his excuses to Captain Lutwidge of the 'Racehorse' with the bear dead on the ice.