Preparing for the Grand Attack, cartoon
TitlePreparing for the Grand Attack, cartoon
ReferenceFRAMED/061
Date
4 Dec 1801
Production date 1801-12-04 - 1804-12-04
Scope and ContentBy H. Humphrey
From Catalogue of political and personal satires preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum: vol VIII - 1801-1810
"Burdett (r.) declaims a speech whose heads are inscribed on a gigantic scroll held out to him by Fox. Fox raises his arms high to hold the scroll, one end of which falls behind his head and shoulders. The other end, still rolled and blank, is held by Sheridan who stands on the extreme l. behind a writing table over which the scroll passes. Horne Tooke, seated full face behind the table, an inkpot in one hand, writes on the scroll with a sourly inscrutable expression. Burdett, with arms thrown wide, had in r. hand, stands with legs astride on a large tattered volume ... Sheridan, the theatrical expert, leans forward delightedly ... Fox, very corpulent and gouty, his gloomy face shaded by the scroll ...
"Against the wall and forming a background to Sheridan, Horne Tooke, and Fox is a high bookcase, the books covered by a curtain, parted to reveal the folios inscribed Thel[wall], Revolut[on], Cromw[ell], Machiavel. On the top are three busts partly decapitated by the upper margin: Tom Paine, Abbe Seyeis and Rob'spear. Their positions imply that they are the 'doublures' respectively of Sheridan, Tooke and Fox. On a small cabinet behind Burdett stands a model of a guillotine. Tooke wears a bonnet rouge with tricolour cockade, a dressing gown with (torn) clerical bands.
"This apparent anticipation of Burdett's motion on 12 Apr 1802 for an inquiry into the conduct of the late Administration suggests that Gillray may have had private sources of information. Burdett's extravagant speech was an attack on the war as 'the old struggle [by the French] for rights and liberties against arbitrary power ... the struggle in which the first Christians were engaged' Pitt's motives for making war were said to be the destruction of the liberties of England. The motion was lost by 246 to 39. ... 'Unaccounted Millions' is an allusion to the City petition of 5 July 1769 which styled Holland (Fox's father) 'the Public Defaulter of Unaccounted Millions', a phrase long remembered against Fox, who had inherited and squandered much of the official profits of Holland as Paymaster
From Catalogue of political and personal satires preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum: vol VIII - 1801-1810
"Burdett (r.) declaims a speech whose heads are inscribed on a gigantic scroll held out to him by Fox. Fox raises his arms high to hold the scroll, one end of which falls behind his head and shoulders. The other end, still rolled and blank, is held by Sheridan who stands on the extreme l. behind a writing table over which the scroll passes. Horne Tooke, seated full face behind the table, an inkpot in one hand, writes on the scroll with a sourly inscrutable expression. Burdett, with arms thrown wide, had in r. hand, stands with legs astride on a large tattered volume ... Sheridan, the theatrical expert, leans forward delightedly ... Fox, very corpulent and gouty, his gloomy face shaded by the scroll ...
"Against the wall and forming a background to Sheridan, Horne Tooke, and Fox is a high bookcase, the books covered by a curtain, parted to reveal the folios inscribed Thel[wall], Revolut[on], Cromw[ell], Machiavel. On the top are three busts partly decapitated by the upper margin: Tom Paine, Abbe Seyeis and Rob'spear. Their positions imply that they are the 'doublures' respectively of Sheridan, Tooke and Fox. On a small cabinet behind Burdett stands a model of a guillotine. Tooke wears a bonnet rouge with tricolour cockade, a dressing gown with (torn) clerical bands.
"This apparent anticipation of Burdett's motion on 12 Apr 1802 for an inquiry into the conduct of the late Administration suggests that Gillray may have had private sources of information. Burdett's extravagant speech was an attack on the war as 'the old struggle [by the French] for rights and liberties against arbitrary power ... the struggle in which the first Christians were engaged' Pitt's motives for making war were said to be the destruction of the liberties of England. The motion was lost by 246 to 39. ... 'Unaccounted Millions' is an allusion to the City petition of 5 July 1769 which styled Holland (Fox's father) 'the Public Defaulter of Unaccounted Millions', a phrase long remembered against Fox, who had inherited and squandered much of the official profits of Holland as Paymaster
Extent1 framed item
Physical descriptionDimensions (H X W): 30cm X 40cm
Persons keywordGillray, James, Burdett, Francis, Fox, Charles James, Sheridan, Richard, Tooke, John Horne, Burdett, Francis, Paine, Thomas
SubjectCartoons
Conditions governing accessOpen
Levelfile
Normal locationD Plan Chest Drawer 5 (Room 12)