A Free Born Englishman, cartoon
TitleA Free Born Englishman, cartoon
ReferenceFRAMED/113
Date
19 Apr 1813
Production date 1813-04-19 - 1813-04-19
Scope and ContentFrom Catalogue of political and personal satires preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum: volume 9
"G. Cruikshank sculp Published April 19th 1813 by H. Martin 27 Fetter Lane Engraving.
A good-looking well-built man stands directed slightly to the r., heavily shackled, his lips closed by a large padlock. His fashionably cut clothes are ragged, his tattered pockets hang inside out. His hands are bound behind him; heavy leg-irons are attached by a rope to a ring round his waist. Under his feet are papers: "Bill of Rights", "Magna Charta", a long list of "Bankrupts" and a "Gazette". In the background (l.) is a dilapidated house, shored up with a beam, the door inscribed "Mr Bull". Two tax-collectors and a constable stand at the door shouting up at two windows where Bull, exclaiming “Mercy on us”, and his family look out. They shout "Taxes, Taxes"; one has an open book: "Kings Taxes". On the r. is a house with a (broken) shop-window, inscribed "John England & Co", placarded: "The Stock of this Shop Selling off under Commission of Bankruptcy".
The victim is not unlike Leigh Hunt; though in prison for libel, he was not silenced: he continued to edit the Examiner and to attack the Regent in the vein of the offending article. The print derives from satires on the Treason and Sedition Bills of 1795. The device of the padlocked mouth was again revived in 1819. Though there had been some trade recovery since 1812, corn prices were high until the excellent harvest of 1813. According to the "Scourge", v. 453, June 1813, the manufacturers' condition was displayed by the bankruptcies in the Gazette, while the people were 'feasting on parish scraps'."
"G. Cruikshank sculp Published April 19th 1813 by H. Martin 27 Fetter Lane Engraving.
A good-looking well-built man stands directed slightly to the r., heavily shackled, his lips closed by a large padlock. His fashionably cut clothes are ragged, his tattered pockets hang inside out. His hands are bound behind him; heavy leg-irons are attached by a rope to a ring round his waist. Under his feet are papers: "Bill of Rights", "Magna Charta", a long list of "Bankrupts" and a "Gazette". In the background (l.) is a dilapidated house, shored up with a beam, the door inscribed "Mr Bull". Two tax-collectors and a constable stand at the door shouting up at two windows where Bull, exclaiming “Mercy on us”, and his family look out. They shout "Taxes, Taxes"; one has an open book: "Kings Taxes". On the r. is a house with a (broken) shop-window, inscribed "John England & Co", placarded: "The Stock of this Shop Selling off under Commission of Bankruptcy".
The victim is not unlike Leigh Hunt; though in prison for libel, he was not silenced: he continued to edit the Examiner and to attack the Regent in the vein of the offending article. The print derives from satires on the Treason and Sedition Bills of 1795. The device of the padlocked mouth was again revived in 1819. Though there had been some trade recovery since 1812, corn prices were high until the excellent harvest of 1813. According to the "Scourge", v. 453, June 1813, the manufacturers' condition was displayed by the bankruptcies in the Gazette, while the people were 'feasting on parish scraps'."
Extent1 framed item
Physical descriptionDimensions (H X W): 47cm X 37cm
Persons keywordHunt, Leigh, Cruikshank, George
SubjectCartoons, Libel, Sedition, Taxation, Recessions
Conditions governing accessOpen
Levelfile
Normal locationD Plan Chest Drawer 1 (Room 12)