A sailor greets his wife with a kiss on returning home from sea, surrounded by their family. See BHC1125 for the original oil (or a preparatory version). This is one of a set of four plates of effectively the same size and vertical format celebrating 'the British sailor', issued by Smith after Stothard with the same official 1798 publication date. They comprise three similar group shipboard scenes - 'Sailors in a Fight' (PAH7352), 'Sailors in a Storm' (PAH7353) and 'Sailors in Port' (PAH7355) - and this rather different one of a sailor's return to his family (PAH7354). The first two of 'Fight' and 'Storm' are mezzotints but for reasons yet to be explained the other two are aquatints. For some reason C. N. Robinson in 'The British Tar in Fact and Fiction' (1911) f. p. 466 reproduces this image as a print by Hubner after Henry Singleton, with a verse from a song by Charles Dibdin presumably preserved on the copy in his collection (now in the Anne Brown Military Collection, Brown Univ., R.I.): 'My heart with thoughts of thee my dear, / And love, well stored, / Shall brave all danger, scorn all fear, / The roaring winds, the raging sea, / In hopes on shore / to be once more / Safe moor'd with thee!'. Robinson's accompanying text however suggests the Hubner / Singleton attribution is probably an editorial confusion. [TBC: also if NMM copy has the verse attached: PvdM 7/07]