print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1868,0808.7909
- Title
- Object: The contractor and the contracted or 195 more than 186
- Description
-
Curtis (left) and Perceval (right) face each other in front of the Speaker's Chair; the Speaker (Abbot) watches Curtis with quiet amusement. Curtis, dressed as a sailor, as in No. 11353, stands with his hat in his right hand, extending a huge clenched fist towards the trembling and much smaller Perceval; a bottle of 'Brandy' projects from his coat-pocket; his bottle-nose is much exaggerated. He says: "What you thinks as how I Cant See ferther than My Nose do ye but your Mistaken I Sees how Things are going and you thinks I've forgot the Ass in the fable but I an't I knows well how to Butter my bisceuits [see No. 11354] on both Sides, so a Speedy exit And soon [see No. 11306] Dye See I knows 195 is more than 186". Perceval (on the Opposition side of the House), answers, weeping, "What will you also Leave me before my Time Oh Sr Willy this Stabs me To the Soul and well may I exclaim Had I Served my Country with Half the Zeal I've Served my Friends I should not thus have been Left a Laughing Stock to mine Enemies". Above his head is a placard: 'Whereas P-l and Co Bankrupts to Surender & Partnership Disolved'.
February 4 1810
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1810
- Dimensions
-
Height: 359 millimetres
-
Width: 252 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VIII, 1947)
On 26 Jan. Lord Porchester's motion for a committee of inquiry on the Walcheren Expedition, see No. 11364, &c., was carried against the Ministry by 195 to 186. See 'Parl. Debates', xv. 161 ff.; 'Ann. Reg.', 1810, pp. 41 ff.; 'Pol. Reg.' xvii. 161 ff.; Holland, 'Further Memoirs of the Whig Party'; M. Roberts, 'The Whig Party, 1807-1812', 1939, pp. 144-8. Curtis supported the motion, occasioning a laugh from the Opposition, on which he said '. . . he would have them all know that he gave his vote on all occasions in as free and independent a manner and with as free and independent a mind, as any member of this House'. This marks the climax of attempts to overthrow Perceval's weak Government, cf. No. 11528; resolutions condemning the Expedition were defeated. 'The Old Commodore or Weathercock Billy, voting as his Conscience directed him', pub. Fairburn, 1810, a song-head by I. and/or G. Cruikshank (Reid, No. 98), satirizes this subject.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0808.7909