'A View of the Dock Gates at Portsmouth taken from the Navy Coffee house window, Decr 74' (Bray album) RMG PT1994

'A View of the Dock Gates at Portsmouth taken from the Navy Coffee house window, Decr 74' [Bray album]
No. 19 of 74 (PAJ1976 - PAJ2049)
The view appears to be along the Dockyard wall towards the Hard, with one of the waterfront taverns on the left, stall-holders selling produce and two men possibly playing knucklebones on the paved street surface in the foreground. The title and date are inscribed below with the signature 'AVprGB' (to the life by Gabriel Bray) and the drawing was done just before Bray sailed for Africa from Portsmouth in December 1774.
This is one of 73 drawings by Bray (plus one signed 'NF 1782') preserved in a 19th-century album. They have now been separately remounted. Bray (1750-1823), was second lieutenant of the 44-gun ‘Pallas’ under Captain the Hon. William Cornwallis (1744-1819) – later a well-known admiral – on two voyages (1774-77) to report on British interests in West Africa, including the slave trade. The dated drawings refer only to the first of these, from December 1774 to September 1775, though a few may be from the second. Others comprise country views, some of Deal, Kent (where Bray may have come from), and others of social-history interest.

A View of the Dock Gates at Portsmouth taken from the Navy Coffee house window, Decr 74