Search night - or - state watchmen mistaking honest men for conspirators

Search night - or - state watchmen mistaking honest men for conspirators

Item Information

Title:
Search night - or - state watchmen mistaking honest men for conspirators
Title (alt.):
Search night. Or, state watchmen mistaking honest men for conspirators
Description:
The interior of a bare, poverty-stricken room with a raftered roof. Pitt and Dundas, as watchmen, batter down the upper timbers of a door (right) which has been strongly bolted, locked, and barricaded. Both have long staves, Pitt holds up a lantern. The occupants hide or flee, except Lord Moira, who stands stiffly in profile to the right on the extreme left, his crisped fingers outspread deprecatingly, disassociating himself from his companions. He wears regimentals with a cocked hat. A heavy but ragged cloth covers a rectangular table in the middle of the room, on which are ink-pot and papers. A dark-lantern stands on open pages. An office stool has been overturned. Prone under the table, their heads and shoulders draped by the cloth, are (left to right): Horne Tooke, Nicholls, and Tierney. Fox and Sheridan escape up a ladder to a trap-door in the roof. The latter still has one foot on the floor. Between ladder and wall (left) is an iron-bound chest filled with daggers. More daggers are heaped on the floor and beneath them are two papers: 'The Press' (the organ of the United Irishmen, started by O'Connor) and 'Bloody News from Ireland.' This lies across a paper signed 'Munchausen.' The Duke of Norfolk is timorously waiting his turn to escape by the wide chimney, up which Bedford is disappearing. The latter is identified by a paper hanging from his pocket. A large fire burns in the grate, on the bar of which Bedford puts his foot. Across the chimney is scrawled 'Vive l'Egalite' on either side of a bonnet-rouge. Above it are prints, bust-portraits of Buonapart and Robespierre. On the right is a casement window showing a night sky and the turrets of the White Tower. Below it is hung a broadside headed by a guillotine. In the corner of the room (right) is a pile of bonnets-rouges. In the foreground rats scamper towards a large hole in the ramshackle floor. Beside them are papers. / Some arrests had been made in England in the beginning of March, 1798, of persons implicated in the troubles that were disturbing Ireland, and were the object of severe animadversions by some of the opposition papers. The subject is here made the ground for a satire on the Whigs. Pitt and Dundas, the two State Watchmen, are breaking in upon the conspirators. The two leaders, Fox and Sheridan, make their escape by the cock-loft, while the Dukes of Bedford and Norfolk take to the chimney. Three of the party have sought a refuge under the table. Lord Moira alone stands his ground (Wright/Evans).
Artist:
Gillray, James, 1756-1815
Name on Item:
Js. Gy. Invt. & fect.
Date:
March 20, 1798
Format:
Prints
Genre:
Etchings
Caricatures
Satires (Visual works)
Location:
Boston Public Library
Arts Department
Collection (local):
John D. Merriam Collection
Subjects:
Politicians
Government officials
Rebels
Nobility
Authors
Emperors
Military officers
Revolutionaries
Escapes
Ambushes
O'Connor, Arthur, 1763-1852
Bedford, Francis Russell, Duke of, 1765-1802
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 1751-1816
Fox, Charles James, 1749-1806
Dundas, Henry, 1742-1811
Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821
Norfolk, Charles Howard, Duke of, 1746-1815
Pitt, William, 1759-1806
Robespierre, Maximilien, 1758-1794
Tierney, George, 1761-1830
Hastings, Francis Rawdon-Hastings, Marquess of, 1754-1826
Tooke, John Horne, 1736-1812
Places:
England
Extent:
1 print : hand-colored etching ; plate mark 26 x 37 cm
Permalink:
https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/2z111j894
Terms of Use:
No known copyright restrictions.
No known restrictions on use.
Publisher:
No. 27 St. James Street : Pubd. by H. Humphrey
Language:
English
Notes:
Title from item.
Alternative title from Wright/Evans.
BM Satires 9189; Wright/Evans 184
Verso has part of a failed Gillray print: "Lord Longbow, the alarmist, discovering the miseries or Ireland," March 12, 1798.
Notes (date):
Date from item.
Notes (citation):
Stephens, Frederic George, George, Mary Dorothy. "Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum." British Museum Press, 1870, London.
Wright, Thomas, R. H. Evans. "Historical and descriptive account of the caricatures of James Gillray." Benjamin Blom, 1968, New York.
Identifier:
18_17_000113
Barcode:
36666003787112