- Museum number
- 1868,0808.4454
- Title
- Object: An exact representation of the seven malefactors that where executed at Tower Hill on April 5, 1771 f[or treason] to their countrey
- Description
-
Two carts conveying malefactors, after the manner of the usual procession to Tyburn, with a crowd of spectators in the foreground. Spectators also look from windows. The victims have numbers which refer to explanatory notes beneath the print: "N° 1 Lord Bloody scrol. N° 2 Alderman contract the Citys great Curse. N° 3 Lord Hellish Facts a Lover of Arbitrary Power &c. &c. 2d Cart. N° 1 Gray Goose a Lawyer of infamous practices in any Court. N° 2 Coll Bluster remarkable for nothing but the murder of an innocent Woman. N° 3 Jemmy Twitcher. N° 4 Cocking George one that never kept his Word with any on[e]." Labels issue from the mouths of the victims and the spectators. Each cart has a parson without a number; in the first cart (l.) he has a halter round his neck and is saying: "Lying & Perjury & Deciet are my chief supports". He is Dr. W. Scott, 'Twitcher's Advocate', see BMsat cat. no. 4426. No. 1, Lord Barrington, says: "Oh! I hear the murderd Allen call me to Account Oh! St. Georges Fields". No. 2, Alderman Harley: "Oh! I have wrongd my Countrey & decievd my Fellow Citizens. Oh! that I had been but Honest". No. 3, Lord Halifax: "General Warrants and every oppressive measure against my country makes me repent Oh the cursed Jezebel [the Princess Dowager of Wales]".
In the second cart (r.) the clergyman, Parson Horne, is saying: "my poor father used to say G-- Damn ye Jacky never be seen to keep bad compy for fear you shoud come to be Hangd". He holds a paper on which is inscribed "I think!. No. 1, de Grey, in Judge's wig and gown, says: "I have betrayd
my Friend robd my country, been led by the nose by that infernal B------h
Jezebel Carlton, Oh me". No. 2, Luttrell, says: "Arabella, poor Arabella Bolton! pray for your murderer Oh I am a damd Villian [sic]". No. 4, Onslow: "little did I think I shoud be pitted with such a parcel of Shake-Bags rascals Oh! that I had still been a hearty Cock". No. 3, Sandwich: "I never since I have been Jemmy Twitcher have been in such Wicked & bad Company no not I".
Spectators from the windows address the victims. L. to right.: "Remember St. George's Fields effectual murthers"; "Cocking George you dont Die Game"; "Take care Panurge the Halters Round your neck" (this is addressed to Dr. W. Scott, the parson, the reputed author of letters to the Press defending Sandwich, signed "Panurge" and "Cinna"); "Here's a General Warrant for Ye ye Dogs"; "it is a pity he should escape he's such a double rogue"; "What! the Vicar of Brentford [Horne] are you doing duty there twil be your turn soon". Members of the crowd in the foreground (l. to right.) say: "Miss Bolton's Curses on
the Wretch"; "We could pick out a score more T------rs [Traitors obliterated]
to their Countrey"; "I think the Lawyer becomes a Cart and a Halter"; "I thought George [Onslow] had been better fed he's well trim'd"; "The Alderman had better minded Tare and Trett"; "Jemmy Twitcher false to his God, his King, his countrey & his Friend" [Wilkes]. An Irishman says: "By Jasus God if such varmint would be in Ireland to be hang'd for we woud stone 'em to death with Brick Bats"; "The Colonel shoud have been hangd at Brentford"; "Look at Double faced Jack the Parson of B?,[rentford]"; "Hanging's too good for that Rogue the Alderman"; "They have lived too Long". A soldier, in the uniform of the foot-guards & holding a musket, says: "Damn the soldier that Draws a Trigger to oblige any Comander against an Englishman"; "Oh there's Tom Patts the Chicken Butcher's son I thought he would be hangd ere now"; "What! Cocking George. Il' lay you the Long Odds you die as great a dunghill as you have livd. I say done first"; "Damn the Brentford Vicar they must hang him soon for he's a Villian in disguise". A woman says: "I thought the Pellmell Jezebel [half erased but legible] woud come to this". 10 April 1771
Etching
- Production date
- 1771
- Dimensions
-
Height: 205 millimetres
-
Width: 320 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', V, 1935)
On 5 April such a procession in which two carts were preceded by a hearse went to Tower Hill attended by the mob. The figures in the carts were of pasteboard, nearly life-size, hanging from gallows, with names on their backs: "L------d B------n"; "Ld. H------x"; "Alderman H."; "L------ll the Usurper"; "D--G--y"; "Jemmy Twitcher"; "Cocking George". They were burnt on Tower Hill and shortly afterwards their 'dying speeches' were sold in the streets. 'Gent. Mag.' 1771, p. 188; 'Ann. Reg.' 1771, p. 91.
The occasion of the demonstration was the imprisonment of the Lord Mayor and Oliver in the Tower (see BMSat 4850,4853, &c), and on the same day the L.M. was taken before de Grey who refused a writ of 'Habeas Corpus' and re-committed him to the Tower. But except for the effigies of de Grey and Onslow (who started the action in the Commons against the printing of debates, see BMSat 4855), this satire is chiefly concerned with other and earlier aspects of the struggle between Wilkes and the City on one side and Court, Ministry, and Commons on the other. Barrington is pilloried for his connexion with the 'Massacre of St. George's Fields', see BMSat 4196; "Bloody Scrol" is a quotation from Wilkes's justification of his libel on the offending letter (written by Weymouth, not Barrington): ['Twas W------h urged th 'enforcing his commands; Twas B------n that gave th 'exciting pay," See BMSat 4196.] "I thought it my duty to bring to light that bloody scroll." 'Parl. Hist.' xvi. 543; Halifax for the general warrant of 1763, see BMSat 4050, 4203. Harley was the chief supporter of the Court among the aldermen, and as candidate for the City had defeated Wilkes in the election of 1768; see BMSat 4069, 4190, 4213, 4235, 4269. For Luttrell, the Middlesex Election, and the alleged seduction of Arabella Bolton, see BMSat 4284, 4285, 4971. Sandwich was hated for his treachery to Wilkes over the 'Essay on Woman'; the satires relating to him are numerous, see BMSat 4075 and Vol. iv. pp. cxi-cxii, and index to this volume. For the Princess Dowager of Wales see BMSat 3846, 3847, 4425, 4874, &c. The quarrel between Wilkes and Horne absorbed popular attention in the early months of 1771. See Walpole, 'Letters', viii. 7, 27-8,44 and BMSat 4861, 4862,4863,4867,4879, 5102, 5127.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.4454
