print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.7833
- Title
- Object: General clavering
- Description
-
The title continues: Who was committed to Newgate by the Honble the House of Commons, for Gross Prevarication before a Committe [sic] of the whole House. A portrait, not caricatured, of Clavering seated in an upright chair in a room in Newgate, plainly furnished but not uncomfortable. His chair faces the fire (right); his legs are crossed, and he turns to face the spectator, holding a letter to Mrs Clark. He is fashionably dressed, wearing a double-breasted tail-coat and Hessian boots. On a table are writing-materials with a sheet headed Dear Mrs Clarke. Above the chimney-piece is the corner of a picture or mirror, the frame inscribed Bobidal [sic], implying that Clavering is boastful and cowardly (cf. (e.g.) No. 6116). Below the title: "I wish to be heard as my evidence will impeach her Testimony"—"I do not know that Mrs Clarke / ever used her influence in favour of any Person whatever in the Army, with the Commander in Chief. / Do you know of any Person that ever asked her so to do? Answer No. (Bishop Waltham Sepr. 15.1804.) [i.e. 5 Sept., a letter from Clavering to Mrs. Clarke asking her to submit a proposal to the Duke, produced in the Commons, 15 Feb. 1809, Parl. Debates, xii. 670] / "You mention that his Royal Highness did not comprehend my proposal—it was to raise a Battallion for / general & Unlimited service, do submit the plan to his Royal Highness.—Always very truly Yours H M Claverrig [sic], can you receive me in Boots / Novr 11 1804 / "The purport of this is to thank you for your attempt to serve / "me, can you so contrive that we shall meet—Yours very truly H. M. Clavering—do inform me / if any new Regiments are to be raised.— Examined. I did not understand the meaning of the word / communication, I thought it meant Conversation only—"I did not think she possessed any influence over / the Commander in Chief—Why did you then apply to her to use her influence & to obtain information, you could not / obtain elsewhere"?—because I thought by her influence over the Commander in Chief she could obtain any information, & conceived the only way to obtain that which I wished was by application to her / Mr C W Wynne. Friday March 3 said Genl Clavering came before the House as a Volunteer [to offer evidence] & therefore was liable to the / suspicion of designing to impose upon the House.—Mr Whitbread stated, that in his opinion Gen Claverings intention was to invalidate the Testimony of the principle witness [Mrs. Clarke] supposing his Letter were destroyed, & that his Preverication was more / dangerous than that of Capn Sandon.
June 1809
Hand-coloured etching with stipple on the face
- Production date
- 1809
- Dimensions
-
Height: 180 millimetres (image)
-
Height: 320 millimetres (platemark)
-
Width: 203 millimetres (image)
-
Width: 224 millimetres (platemark)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VIII, 1947)
Clavering, see No. 11247, offered evidence against the veracity of Mrs. Clarke, see No. 11216, &c, on 10 Feb.; on 15 Feb. letters cited above were produced; on 3 Mar. his prevarication was exposed in an examination by C. W. Wynne (quoted above), cf. No. 11297. He was committed to Newgate on 24 Mar., see No. 11247. See Parl. Debates, xii. 515 ff., 670 f., 1148 ff.
Reid, No. 77.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.7833