Maggs Bros.

Rare. Not in the British Museum. There are copies at Yale (sheet trimmed, uncoloured), the Library of Congress (hand colouring) and the American Antiquarian Society (but it does not appear in the online catalogue).

A satirical view of a supposed British military academy training soldiers to fight in the American Revolutionary War.

In the foreground of this print child-like trainee officers take aim at cats ad attempt to topple a house of cards with a makeshift canon made from a pistol. In the background two officers reluctantly fence, their stances are wide and almost balletic. One officer averts his gaze from his opponent in fear, the other leans backwards comically, each have discs on the end of their sword to stop them inflicting any injury. Other officers stand around the edges of the room talking to one another and looking on. Hanging o the room’s back wall is a notice of “rules to be observed in the Academy”, and a map showing Boston and New York, the “Seat of War in North America”. The large map is in fact very similar to the many engraved maps and charts produced by the publishers of the present print, Robert Sayer and John Bennett, which announced to the British public the progress of the war in America. See The seat of action, between the British and American forces (1776) and The Seat of war in New England, by an American volunteer (1775).

This print was published in June 1777, in the midst of the American War of Independence. It satirises the British officer class and calls their competence into question at a moment when the war was becoming increasingly unpopular in Britain. The cat and mouse are absurdly fixed in place for target practice, the fencing officers are too cowardly or incompetent to engage in fighting and the “rules to be observed in this academy” represent the bureaucratic formalities of the academy that bore little relation to the practical skills taught there. This representation of inept officers training with toys and avoiding real combat speaks to broader concerns about British leadership during the war. There was a perception that British commanders were either out of touch with the realities of the conflict or not fully committed to its successful resolution. This criticism would only intensify later in the year with the British defeat at Saratoga in October.