William Hogarth - Hogarth the idle 'prentice

"The Idle 'Prentice turned away, and sent to Sea", engraving by William Hogarth.
Tom Idle, having failed as an apprentice, is sent to sea despite his widowed mother's tears. His new companions mock him as he is rowed down Limehouse Reach to his ship. But Tom Idle is defiant and makes the sign of the horns; probably, an allusion to the fact he is facing Cuckold's Point, Rotherhithe. One of the sailors is producing a cat o' nine tails while the other points to his likely fate: a gibbet on the nearby Isle of Dogs. (Pirates were hanged in chains there.)

Several windmills are visible on the west wall of the Isle of Dogs (or Millwall). Their existence can be verified from Joel Gascoyne's map of 1703.