Trumbull, like West and Copley, had an ambition to excel at history painting in the grand manner, to create pictures large in scale and heroic in import. Upon West's advice, he selected an important episode in the long siege of Gibraltar, when the Spaniards attempted to take the rock from the British. Trumbull portrayed a specific moment of British victory—when General George Eliott offers compassionate assistance to his dying foe, the young Don José de Barboza. The artist's ultimate purpose, however, was to emblematize the noble conduct of gentlemen, whatever the circumstances.

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