Overall: 36cm (14.2in) x 45cm (17.5in)
Watercolour on paper. Bow port-quarter view of the 38-gun HMS Hydra attacking the Catalan port of Begur on 7 August 1807. Numbered 1424 A. Signed and dated 1886 lower right. Image size: 20cm (8in) x 28.5cm (11.2in). Framed and glazed.
The present watercolour is based on a Ackermann lithograph engraved by Gauci after George Chambers. It depicts the daring Mediterranean cutting out action of 7 August 1807 when HMS Hydra (Captain George Mundy RN) spotted a flotilla of Spanish supply ships, protected by two French sloops, in the gulf of Rosas. The enemy convoy made for the safety of Begur. Mundy, with great daring, went in so close that the barrels of the guns in the Begur fort and watchtowers could not be lowered enough to hit the Hydra. Meanwhile two cutters were manned under the command of Lieutenant Drury on Hydra’s port side. Hydras sailors and marines then successfully scaled the cliffs, captured the fort and, entering the harbour, overran the enemy sloops and sundry vessels.
William Frederick Mitchell (1845-1914) was a deaf mute. He lost his hearing to scarlet fever in infancy. His father, an H.M. Coastguard stationed at Calshot Castle, taught him to speak. William, known as Fred, developed a career as a maritime artist. He lived most of his life around the Solent and had an arrangement with a Portsmouth bookshop which accepted commissions on his behalf, mostly from naval officers for portraits to illustrate steps in their careers. Fred also illustrated the Brassey's Naval Annual. In 1904 he recorded in ‘The Messenger’, a magazine for deaf people, his marriage in 1881 and that he settled at Ryde on the Isle of Wight, where his patrons included Queen Victoria, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich and The Kaiser. His work can be found in the Royal Collection and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.