The scene is outside a rustic riverside tavern, by implication the Thames (or possibly Medway), with a barn to the right, a working man carrying a basket on his back along the shore, a ship laid up on moorings and the hint of a church spire on the far side. A vine – possibly hops – grows over the door, on the lintel of which the letters '...OUS LIO [?NE]SS' (Jealous Lioness?) are faintly visible.

Inside, through a window with the lower sash thrown up and one broken pane, a young man, young woman and what appears to be an older man look out on the exterior group. A striped cloth spills over the window ledge against which leans a black man, arms folded, in an open-necked white shirt with a sash round his waist. By the door a farm boy in a cap stands with a pitchfork. Both watch the debate between two naval veterans, played out with pieces of broken pipe stem laid out in opposing battle lines on a folding-leg table. On the left a bareheaded balding man (possibly the landlord) in waistcoat and shirt, missing both legs below the knee and standing on two peg legs, leans on the table smoking a pipe. Tilting forward on a bench seat opposite, a Greenwich Pensioner in hat and uniform coat with Hospital Boatswain's lace on his cuff, uses a pipe in his right hand to make a point. His left arm is missing at the shoulder. A mug and broken pipe are by him on the table, below which a terrier dog lies curled up, with a strand of vine behind, watching a cock crowing in the lower right corner.

The theme is of old battles refought in tranquillity, to the amusement of non-combatants not bearing the scars, the possibility of drink still leading to blows, with the (British) dog and (Gallic) cock still warily watching each other. Pidding lived for a while in the Greenwich area: the two disputing men may be portraits and the black man is possibly John Deman (c.1774-1847), also a Pensioner who served with Nelson (see also BHC1159). The print is dedicated to the Duke of Bedford, owner of the original oil (exhibited at the British Institution in 1827), but this is no longer in that collection. If the 'Jealous Lioness' is the tavern name over the door it is not one recorded for the Greenwich area so the scene may be farther afield, possibly across the Medway from Chatham (where ships in reserve were moored above the dockyard) towards Frindsbury church. Pidding's image was sufficiently well known to be copied in circular format, and with some inaccuracy, as decoration of mass-produced Staffordshire-ware pot lids of the period.