This scene, which could have occurred in any of Halifax's numerous bawdy houses, illustrates a major aspect of life in eighteenth-century garrison ports. The painting is by the English artist J.C. lbbetson (1759-1817). While the officer class of the military added an aristocratic tone to society, the rank and file created an atmosphere of riot and dissipation. Their presence meant that Halifax became host to "a great concourse of dissolute abandoned Women, followers of the Camp, Army, and Navy."
Ordinary sailors and soldiers behaved as they did largely because of the rigours of military life. Recruited, often by impressment, from the depths of British society, placed under officers who generally despised them, poorly fed and subjected to brutal discipline, they sought escape in drink, sex and recreational violence. Halifax grogshops and brothels catered to their desires, charging exorbitant prices. The atmosphere here gave rise to theft, assault and looting, all of which the authorities punished with ferocious vigour. One soldier, sentenced to death for burglary, made a speech to the throng assembled to witness his hanging. In it he "warn'd all People, especially his Fellow Soldiers to beware of those Sins which had bro't him to that untimely End, and to have a greater regard for the Sabbath, and to spend more of their time at the Church, and less at the Gin Shops,
