print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.7275
- Title
- Object: A visit to John Bull's- counting house!!
- Description
-
Pitt and Melville advance deferentially, bowing low, to John Bull (r.), seated in a large armchair at a small desk covered with sheets of paper. Melville wears Highland costume, and holds a ram's horn snuff-mull. The pair say: Mr Bull—we have brought you a plan to pay off the National Debt!!! John, a very fat and angry merchant, pen in mouth, answers: "O Yes! - I dare say you have - you are pretty fellows to help a lame dog over the Stile! - besides I have not time to talk with you - I have got the Doctor's Accounts to settle - the Stone Expedition alone will take me a Month to look over." June 1804
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1804
- Dimensions
-
Height: 249 millimetres
-
Width: 351 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VIII, 1947)
For the replacement of Addington (the Doctor, see BMSat 9849) by Pitt see BMSat 10232, &c. In April 1804 the press got wind of a ministerial plan for blocking Boulogne harbour and the invasion flotilla there, by sinking ships filled with stones. This 'Stone Expedition' was ridiculed in a letter to the 'Morning Chronicle' (17 Apr.) dated from the British squadron off Boulogne (see BMSat 10233). Fremantle, 'England in the Nineteenth Century', i, 1929, p. 289 f. Many returns of accounts were made to Parliament in 1804.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.7275