This parodic and indulgent image portrays white British men, likely plantation owners, judges, doctors, or attorneys, fashionably dressed and enjoying a ball while being served by Black men. On the left side of the balcony, Black men play violins, while on the right, white musicians play the horn and oboe and a Black one plays the cymbals. Below, a group of men, women, and children in tattered clothes watch the recurring scene of a Jamaican ball. All of these Black servants, musicians, and spectators would have been enslaved.

The verses at the bottom warn women against “loose living,” and together with facial features, skin tones, and body movements, reflect the creolization of Jamaican society. The grotesque scene is further exacerbated by a disturbing image in the top right, almost seamlessly blending into the dancing dynamics, depicting sexual assault. A white man is shown leaning over a biracial woman, touching her breast with his right hand.

This print is part of a broader tradition of British satire from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which critically depicts the customs of British society in the Caribbean as grotesque and sexualized. This tradition was exemplified by artists such as William Hogarth (1697–1764) and James Gillray (1756–1815). It contrasts to the widely popular balls hosted by the British elite in Great Britain of the kind Jane Austen and members of Regency society would have participated in.