Taking and destruction of the port of Paita in 1741 by the squadron of George Anson.

This painting records the destruction of the Peruvian port of Paita in November 1741 by Commodore George Anson's squadron during his famous circumnavigation. Anson's raid on Paita yielded considerable plunder and demonstrated British naval reach in the Pacific, though the expedition suffered catastrophic losses from scurvy and storms that reduced six ships and nearly two thousand men to a single vessel. Samuel Scott occupied the commanding position in British marine and topographical painting for three decades, filling the gap left by the death of the van de Veldes and not finally superseded until the emergence of Nicholas Pocock and J.M.W. Turner.

Scott depicts the bombardment with the careful attention to ship placement and naval formation that characterized his battle paintings, the fires ashore creating a dramatic counterpoint to the ordered arrangement of British warships.