A sequel to BMSat 10019, where King George III examines a tiny Napoleon on his hand, Gillray now has him sailing in a bathtub with King George III similarly watching in wonder with an amused entourage in the background. This was published in the immediate aftermath of the failure of the Peace at Amiens and the subsequent fear of French invasion.
David Francis Taylor expands on this, writing that the “structural centre of The King of Brobdingnag and Gulliver (Plate 2nd) remains that of its 1803 predecessor: the confrontation between the absurd egoist and the wise, beneficent, and ever-alert monarch. But this encounter is now enveloped by a scene of unbridled hilarity in which laughter spans and in some sense unites the classes: princesses, pages, and beefeaters share the jest” (Taylor). He goes further, “In 1803 King of Brobdingnag, Napoleon elicits the Englishman’s curiosity and censure; in 1804, he evokes amusement and ridicule. This print not only encourages laughter but is about laughter” (ibid).
Britain’s superior naval power prevented a French invasion, a supremacy best demonstrated at the Battle of Trafalgar the following year.
BM satires 10227; Taylor, D.F. “Gillray’s Gulliver and the 1803 Invasion Scare” in Cook, D ed., The Afterlives of Eighteenth Century Fiction (Cambridge, 2015), p.228.
