Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum (vol V, 5987). The American Revolution in drawings and prints; a checklist of 1765-1790 graphics in the Library of Congress no. 818. The copy at the Lewis Walpole Library is also on wove paper. A re-strike exists with “Gillray fecit” in the lower right-hand corner of the print (which is not present here) and Swann Galleries offered a copy of the print in 2020 which has the watermark “Fellows” (not present here either) and was thought to be a later impression. Both examples in the British Museum are uncoloured.
“He that Fights & runs away,
May live to fight another day“
A fine and important caricature by James Gillray in which a Native American is seen fleeing with the head and arm of Britannia while republicans at home (such as Wilkes and Burke) attack the remains of the statue.
This is one the earliest prints that Gillray produced for Elizabeth d’Archery and was immediately noticed and commented upon by the newspapers in London:
“A very extraordinary caricature has lately made its appearance at a print shop in St. James’s-street, under the title of Britannia’s Assassination, or the Republican’s Amusement. The design is conceived with no small degree of severity and ill-nature. The story is Britannia, sitting on a globe, surrounded by several known political characters, each of whom appears hostile to her. An Admiral, hauling down the signal for battle, with a well-chosen line from Butler in a label. A sagacious animal is gnawing Britannia’s leg, who is without her head or arms, and her spear is broken. Two figures that evidently appear designed, from their striking likeness, to represent the two most distinguished characters in Westminster Hall, are labouring to save Britannia by pulling a cord that surrounds her assassins. An American with Britannia’s head and an olive branch. A Frenchman, attempting to grasp at the olive, and accusing the American or perfidy. A Spaniard with the leg of Britannia, and a Dutchman laughing, and beating away her shield. Not withstanding the number of figures the artists has neither confused nor crouded them. Since the Newcastle administration (says a correspondent) there has not been seen a bolder satire in caricature stile against ministers than the above described. This is the second production in the print way that has ventured to arraign the conduct of the present gentlemen in office” (Morning Chronicle 15th May 1782).
The print shows various figures including Wilkes (with a copy of The North Briton under his arm), Fox (shown as a fox), Burke, John Dunning (holding a book above his head titled “Sydney on Government” - a reference to Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government (1698) a highly influential republican work which inspired the American Revolution), Richmond and Keppel (who is holding a flagstaff and hauling down a flag [see below]) attacking a statute of Britannia while Thurlow and Lord Mansfield attempt to rescue it by hauling on two ropes. At the same time the statue is being dismantled and pieces removed by America (in the figure of a Native America who flees with an arm (still clutching an olive branch) and the head ), a Frenchman (who is calling after America, “You dam Dog you ran away wit all de Branche”), a Spaniard who runs away with a leg while a gentleman (supposed to represent Holland) in the foreground, looking directly at the viewer, has taken Britannia’s shield. Gillray is said to have used contemporary mezzotint portraits as the model for most of the major English political figures in the print.
The flag (being hauled down by Keppel) is here coloured with red and white stripes which the contemporary newspaper advertisement quoted from above assumed to be a nautical sign for battle and thus suggests a retreat or capitulation. In many hand-coloured copies the flag is shown as the French tricolour (see for example the copies at The Art Museum of Colonial Williamsburg and at Yale) which is anachronistic as the tricolour was not adopted until after the French revolution.
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