This wonderful painting by Pocock shows the private yacht Dart in two positions off Gibraltar, with H.M.S. Snake behind. The Dart was owned by William Tennant (1750-1803) who was the son of a wealthy merchant and lived with his wife (Mary Wylde) on a large estate at Little Aston Hall in Staffordshire. He was an avid sailor and owned various vessels as well as many marine paintings and artefacts. Gainsborough painted a portrait of the couple, one of which is now housed in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, having been purchased by J.P. Morgan.

H.M.S. Snake was one of two improved ‘Cruizer’ class ship-sloops ordered for the fleet in the mid-1790s, the other being the Victor. Built by Adams at Buckler’s Hard, Snake was laid down in January 1797, launched on 18th December the same year and then taken to Portsmouth where she was completed for sea on 29th April 1798. Measured at 382 tons, she was 100 feet in length and armed with 16-32pdr. carronades and 2-6pdr. stern chasers. Intended for ‘cruising’ (i.e. patrolling) and convoy escort duties, her first notable success came in 1799 when, on 10th November,
in company with H.M.S. Eurydice, she captured the 14-gun French privateer L’Hirondelle off Beachy Head. After escorting a valuable West African convoy during 1801, she was later sent to Jamaica. Converted to a brig in May 1809, she was based mainly at Leith for the rest of the Napoleonic Wars and was sold out of the service in April 1816 when many ships were being disposed of after the advent of peace.

Although surviving records are ambiguous, it seems highly likely that Tennant’s cutter the Dart was the very same vessel that is recorded as being ‘hired’ by the Admiralty from 15th June 1803 when hostilities resumed after the ending of the so-called Peace of Amiens. Measured at 56 tons, Dart was given an armament of 6-3pdrs. and was employed on naval duties until released on 10th January 1805. It is not unlikely that the Admiralty hired the yacht unofficially prior to 1803, and perhaps this painting was commissioned to portray just such an event.