The chart depicts the track H.M.S. Jupiter for England to China in the Years 1807 and 1808. She was acting as escort for the merchant East India Ships. The continuing war with France had left many of the convoys to India, the East Indies, and China vulnerable to attack by French ships. As a reaction to this threat the British began to sail in convoy and with a military escort.

H.M.S. Jupiter was a 50 gun fourth rate ship-of-the-line launched in 1778. She was wrecked on the 10th December 1808 - just three months after her return from the East - when she struck a sunken rock in Vigo Bay.