print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.6901
- Title
- Object: The rival accoucheurs or who shall deliver Europe
- Description
-
Pitt, tall and very thin, and wearing the old-fashioned dress of a (quack) doctor, addresses Bonaparte (not caricatured), dressed as Consul. He says, hat in hand (pointing to a rent sack of guineas (left) inscribed 'Mint-Seed \ T. Y), why I tell you Doctor Buonaparte, nothing can effect a complete deliverance but my Prescription of Mint Seed it is the most Efficacious Remedy in the World'. Bonaparte stands full-face, turning his head in profile to Pitt; he points with his sword to two pyramids of cannon-balls (right), in his left hand are three balls. He says: "I deny that Doctor, my Pills are far more certain in thier operation & much quicker in their effect, for instance you have been months in attempting to deliver Italy & I have delivered her in a Day, but I refer you to Dr Melas & Dr Kray, who have both tried my Pills, & found them irresistable, therfore Dr if you do not immediatly acknowledge the superiority of my Pills by Mahomet [see BMSat 9253] I will make You". From Pitt's pocket issue a forceps inscribed 'Income Tax' and a paper: 'Consultation on the power of Mint Seed'. Behind him and on the extreme left stands Dundas dressed as the zany who accompanied the quack doctor, but in tartan and with a Scots cap; he bangs on a salt-box to produce rough music. From his pocket protrudes a bag labelled: 'Mint Seed for my own practice'. He says: "Hoot Mon, I never knew a Countryman of mine but would prefer the Mint Seed to aw the Republican Pills i the Warld."
On the right a grotesque man, wearing trousers and a short loose shirt (? Desaix), fires a short blunderbuss point-blank in the face of a gaping and terrified Austrian officer, probably Melas (who asked for an armistice after Marengo, 14 June). Kray was defeated by Moreau in the German campaign. 10 July 1800
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1800
- Dimensions
-
Height: 256 millimetres
-
Width: 371 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VII, 1942)
A satire on Pitt's policy of subsidizing continental powers; on June 20th a subsidy convention had been signed at Vienna for £2,000,000; similar belated compacts had been signed with Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Mainz, which scarcely delayed the collapse of resistance to France. 'Camb. Hist. of British Foreign Policy', i. 296-7. See BMSat 9554. The dignity of Bonaparte is noteworthy in a print where all the other figures are broadly caricatured. Cf. Sheridan (27 June) on the 'heroic honours' of Bonaparte, whom he compared to Hannibal. 'Parl. Hist.' xxxv. 396. For other attacks on subsidies see BMSat 8821, &c.; for the Income Tax, BMSat 9363, &c.
Broadley, i. 135-6 (reproduction).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.6901