Fleet Battle and Blockade: The French Revolutionary War 1793-1797 (Chatham Pictorial Histories)
by Robert Gardiner
Category: First Coalition, War of the, 1792-1797

After the setbacks of the American Revolutionary War, the Royal Navy had been renewed and revitalized, so in 1793 a well-prepared fleet embarked on the new conflict with France in a state of high confidence. This was rewarded immediately with a series of almost uninterrupted victories. In such an atmosphere there was a considerable appetite for pictures of every incident, large or small: a thriving trade grew up for prints, engravings and - for the more affluent - watercolours and oils by celebrated artists.