This is a naval battle scene depicting port, broadside views of the French 36-gun corvette La Confiante on the left of the picture and, slightly to stern, the British 38-gun frigate HMS Hydra, on the right of the picture. Both vessels, flying their respective countries' flags from the mizzen gaffs, have tattered and holed sails hoisted but their lower courses looped up ready for action. Gun smoke billows from the port guns of La Confiante and the starboard guns of Hydra. La Confiante appears to have lost her upper mizzen mast.
La Confiante had only been commissioned for a month, and was barely out of the port where she was built, when she was attacked by Hydra in May 1798 off Le Havre. The British Navy ran her aground in the mouth of the Dives River and burnt her.