What event did Handel celebrate with Water Music?

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Oil portrait of composer Georg Frideric Handel by Thomas Hudson, showing Handel in a red coat with gold trim, white wig, and holding a sheet of music. — George Frideric Handel George Frideric Handel, oil on canvas by Thomas Hudson, c. 1736; in the Foundling Museum, London.

Handel composed Water Music to provide entertainment for a royal cruise hosted by King George I of Great Britain on the River Thames on July 17, 1717.1

It is a common misconception to conflate this work with the Music for the Royal Fireworks, which was composed later to celebrate the end of the War of the Austrian Succession and the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.2