Turner exhibited no fewer than three sea-pieces set in the Thames Estuary at his gallery in 1808 and three more the following year and the year after that (to say nothing of the large ‘Spithead: Boat crew recovering an anchor' first exhibited in 1808 as showing Portsmouth but re-named for the Academy exhibition in 1809 to conceal the original subject of the captured Danish ships, the Danes having now become allies). The 1808 exhibits, the titles of which are known from the Review of Publications of Art, were ‘Purfleet and the Essex Shore, as seen from Long Reach', which was bought by Lord Essex, 'The Confluence of the Thames and Medway', now at Petworth (665), and 'Sheerness as seen from the Nore', the rather larger picture, 41 1/2 × 59 in, probably bought by Samuel Dobree and now in the Loyd collection (see Leslie Parris The Loyd Collection 1967, P.42, No.6o, repr.). The 1809 works, known from Turner's printed catalogue, the first to survive, were Nos.153, 155, and ‘Shoeburyness Fishermen hailing a Whitstable Hoy', bought by Walter Fawkes and now in the National Gallery of Canada. The 1810 works, 'Blythe Sands' (No.155), 'Sheerness, from the Great Nore' and 'Shoeburyness, Essex', may all have been those shown the year before, but there is a further example, in the larger 42 3/4 × 56 1/2 in format, in the National Gallery of Art, Washington (what seems to have been the large 'Spithead' also reappeared this year). A letter from Turner to Sir John Leicester of 2 December 1810, headed by a slight pen and ink sketch that shows he is referring to No.153, gives it yet another title, 'Old Sandwich, G. Ship at the Nore’.

Though the compositions of this group are a development of the grand sea-pieces of 1801 and 1802 by way of ‘The "Victory" beating up the Channel on its Return from Trafalgar', probably shown at Turner's gallery in 1806, and the large so-called 'Spithead', the immediate inspiration of this unmatched concentration on an only slightly varied theme seems to have been Turner's activity making sketches on the Thames. Just as the group of large oil sketches includes two estuary scenes (No.154 and Tate Gallery 2698) as well as views on the river above London, so too does the ‘Hesperides' sketchbook include drawings and watercolours of both estuary and river subjects (for the estuary subjects see T.B.XCIII-16 (a sketch for the Washington picture), 17-18v, 41). There are further Thames Estuary drawings in the 'River and Margate' sketchbook (T.B.XCIX; see especially 25, 31, 56v-59v, the last inscribed 'Guardship at the Nore' but not specifically related to No.153). The finished pictures show an endless variety of skies and weather conditions, and also endless permutations and combinations of ships, large and small; Turner perhaps used his models as well as observation on the spot (see No.B77).