A mid- on half pay Tower Hill. [graphic]

"A midshipman, no longer young, in shirtsleeves, sits on a padlocked chest blacking a boot. He looks straight before him with a tragic expression. He wears his regulation top-hat, blue trousers, neatly patched, and waistcoat over a white shirt, and sits on the midshipman's coat which he has taken off. On the ground at his feet are a tray for blacking-brushes, a pot labelled Warrens Blacking 30 Strand, a broken dirk, top-boots, and shoes. Behind are houses on Tower Hill, with the moat. Behind (left) is an alehouse, with a pair of trousers hanging as a sign from a projecting flagstaff. Inset in the title is a group of sextant, telescope, a book: . . . ton More, &c, below the pawnbroker's sign of three balls."--British Museum online catalogue, description of an earlier state