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CO\IKULUSriUTiON: JamesGillray,English, 1757-1815 BritaniaIrAssassination, ortheRepublicansAmmement, ijSz engraving GiftofMissSusanDwightBliss 1956.24.309 below; J.Phillips,English,eighteenthcentury ThePresentStateofGreatBritain (detailofengraving;seepage7) OREWORD In planning this publication, we have chosen to meander down paths that sometimes stray far from the prints on view in the exhibition, touching upon EngHsh radicahsm and printjournahsm, the response to the French Revolution bythe proper- tied classes ofEngland, and attempts by Crown and Parliament to police and control whatcouldbesaidinprintandwhatimagescouldbepublished.Wehopeourreflections offersomecontextwithinwhichto "read"theseremnantsofvisualandmaterialculture. Foreighteenth-centurymonarchsrestlesslywatchingasradicaljournalistschurnedout seditioustexts, thestreamofpaperoffthepressesmighthaveproducedsweatunderthe collar (especially at the thought ofpoor Louis in France). It is a stretch, but does the guillotine not look a lot like a printing press? Replace a blade with a plate and a neck with a sheet ofpaper. The printerJohn Wilkes, champion ofthe free press, said of William Hogarth's skill atcaricature thathe could "gibbetin colour" like no one else. Withinthenextsixtyyears, the practice ofgibbeting, the publicdisplayofdead, dying, ortortured bodies, would be almostcompletelyretired bythe British governmentas a formofpunishment. Itspurposeinthe firstplacewastobroadcastthepoweroftheking to potentially unruly subjects; in a macabre way it was live media in a way that print could neverbe. In an era when mass politics would relyon printed charters and man- ifestosandthestatewouldrequiresophisticatedtechniques forsurveillance, censorship, and its own propaganda, such physical displays oftorture were inefficient and unpre- dictable. It is fitting, then, that one ofthe lastvictims ofthe pillory in England was a printer, Daniel IsaacEaton. The crowd atNewgate, 15,000 strong, cheered for him. Acaveatonthe powerofthe printed word and image should be mentioned atthe out- set, and thatis thatmodernhistorians have no choice butto contendwith itin spite of its limitations. Print could freeze for posterity the stories and the viewpoints ofprint- makers and those withwealth enough to hire them. For all their biting political satire and theirartistry,WilliamHogarth andJames Gillrayweremercilesslycondescending in their depictions ofthe English poor and the working classes. Prints ofthe period that traded in symbols ofrepublican liberty and political slavery rarely depicted the real human bondage that would have been the condition ofhundreds ofthousands in the British West Indies alone in any given year represented in this collection. Several oftheprintsonviewinthis exhibitionsituatetheirallegoryinthewatersoftheAtlantic. We see the Dutchmanwithhis barrels ofexoticcolonial commodities and caricatured Frenchmen and Spaniards bent on thwarting English commercial interests. But none ofthese represents real, existing slavery-that mainspring oftrans-Atlantic trade that made nations rich. Wehope thatyouwill considersuchsuppressednarratives as much as the narratives in evidence here. KatherineFinnegan Diana Tuite Aaron Windel FIGUREi: WilliamHogarth,English, 1697-1764 JohnWilkesEsq. engraving LoanfromAlbertE.Stone,Jr. 74.1991.3 4 HIRD-e/ARTY?r:>'OLITICS BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND AMERICA IN AN AGE OF REVOLUTION The prints inthis exhibitionwere created duringthe earlydecades ofthe sixty-yearrule ofGeorge IIIasKingofGreatBritain andKingofIreland. George III came to the throne in 1760, in the midst ofthe highlyunpopular Seven Years' War (i756-1763), which was being fought in continental Europe and America. The Age ofRevolution was gathering force in America and France, and Britain would continue to be involved inoverseas conflicts. Athome, artists, printmakers, and writers used the expanding power ofprint to add theirvoices to the political scene. "The Constant Couple": george and the "middling ranks" iii Fromthe 1760s on,manyBritonsralliedbehindKingGeorgeIIIduringthe Seven Years' War and in his deahngs with the rebeUious settlers in the North American colonies. Although he was a symbol oftyranny for the colonists, at home George was viewed by many as a respected guardian, and he and Queen Charlotte were I.TamaraL.Hunt,"Moralityand MonarchyintheQueenCaroUne referred to as the "Constant Couple."^ Prints such as Children ofGeorgeIIIserved ASfair,"ALBION:A Qiimterly to acquaintthepublicwiththe royalfamilyand to emphasize thekingand queen's JournalConcernedwithBritish successful childrearing. Studies23 (1991),718. Beyond this, George activelycultivated a simple, domestic persona, an actofself- fashioning that historian Linda Colleysees as having shored up national security in the moment. She writes that George III "now seemed to many to represent a 2.LindaColley,"TheApotheosis ofGeorgeHI: LoyaltyRoyaltyand reassuring stability in the midst ofnational flux and humiliation, honest uncom- theBritishNation 1760-1820," plicated worth in contrast with those meretricious, complex and/or immoral PastandPresent 102 (1984), 104. poHticianswhohadfailed."^ Consistentwiththisinterpretation, Benjamin Smith's engravingPortraitofHisMostGraciousMajestyKingGeorgetheThirdportraysaregal king at the same time thatitunderscoreshis penchant for animal husbandry. Repressive Print Culture Beyond contendingwith the external ideological threat ofrepublicanism. King George endured internal attacks generated bymembers ofthe press. Perhaps the mostradical of these wasJohn Wilkes, a London journalist and publisher ofThe North Briton, an anti- government paper in dialogue with the Tory publication, The Briton. Number XLV of TheNorthBritoncontainedWilkes'smostinfamousindictmentofthekingandultimately led to his arrest. In this volume, Wilkes criticized George's presentation to Parliament regarding the Treaty ofParis at the end ofthe Seven Years' War. Although Prussia had emerged the mostvictoriouspowerthroughitsacquisitionofnewlands, George'sspeechdeclaredthe war a victory for Great Britain. Wilkes immediately condemned the speech by blaming theEarl ofBute,whowas the prime ministerand KingGeorge'scourtfavorite, forvoic- inghisopinionsthrough thesovereign. Indoingthis,Wilkesperpetratedanobviousand direct assaulton the Crown and was arrested and brought to trial forseditious hbel. During Wilkes's trial in Westminster Hall, British engraver and satirist William Hogarth produced an engraving{v\G.i,page4) inwhich a devilish and cross-eyedWilkes sits holdinga libertypole andcapinscribedwiththeword"Liberty."Thiscaphadalong iconographichistorydescendingfromtwosometimesintersecting, symbolicpracticesin the ancientworld. In Rome, thepileuswas a capused in the manumission ceremonies of soon-to-be-freed slaves. For Greeks, the red Phrygian cap denoted foreigners from the 3.YvonneKorshak,"TheLiberty EastandwasparticularlyassociatedwiththecultofMithras.3 Bythe eighteenthcentury, CapasaRevolutionarySymbolin the cap and pole had returned as classical symbols for independence. AmericaandFrance,"Smithsonian StudiesinAmericanArt,Vol.i,No. 2 With this engraving, Hogarth, also a favorite of the prime minister, was retahat- (Autmnn, 1987),53-69. ing for having been the victim ofa blistering critique by Wilkes in Number XVII of TheNorth Briton. "Hogarth made the attempt, but the rancour and malevolence ofhis mind made him verysoon turn with envyand disgust from objects ofso pleasing 4.JohnWilkesandCharles contemplation, to dwell and feasta bad hearton others ofa hateful cast, Churchill,"NumberXVn," which he pursued, for he found them congenial, with the most un-abating TheNorthBriton i (1762),89. zeal, and unrelenting gall."4 Inspite ofHogarth'sparody, Wilkes's arrestprompted a massive outcryand he became a galvanizingsymbol for freedom ofthe press. Wilkes had previously attacked Bute in Number VofTheNorth Briton by likening him to RogerMortimer. RogerMortimerhad been the Earl ofMarchunderKingEdward II (1307-1327), husband ofQueen Isabella ofFrance. Mortimer and Queen Isabella were lovers who escaped to France, where they successfully conspired to invade England, 5.WilliamMountfort,TheFall ofMortimer(London:G.Kearsly, depose Edward II, and replace him with his son, Edward III. Wilkes continued to draw 1763). parallels between Bute and Mortimer in the dedication to the reissued play. The Fallof Mortimer: "whereverthe name ofRogerMortimer shall be mentioned, that ofBute will follow to the latesttimes."5 6 FIGURE2: J.Phillips,English,eighteenthcentury ThePresentStateofGreatBritain engraving GiftofMissSusanDwightBliss 1956.24.344 7 nCLTRF.3: AnonyiTious TheReconciliationbetweenBritania andherdaughterAmerica, 1782 etching GiftofMissSusanDwightBliss 1963.454 8 "The Horse America, Throwing His Master" (Title ofa 1779 printpublished byWilliam White) InJohn Wilkes the American colonists thought they had found a sympathetic advocate whoembodiedtheideological ambitionsoftheAmericanPatriotParty.Amongthemore radical factions ofthe American PatriotPartywas The Sons ofLiberty, a covertorgani- zation of patriots who rebelled by attacking colonial officials and destroying Crown property.The Sons ofLibertycontactedWilkes in 1768, appealingto theirshared "gen- erous and inflexible principles," and they kept up correspondence with him as events 6.PaulineMaier,"JohnWilkesand unfolded in the colonies.^ Wilkes was a passionate supporter ofthe American colonists' AmericanDisillusionmentwith struggle for independence and was angered by the violent and despotic measures taken Britain,"The WilliamandMaiy by the Crown. However, Wilkes served primarily a symbolic function for the overseas Quarterly 20 (1963), 375.Maier's population, since he was shut out ofParliament until 1774, at which point relations sourceforlettersbetweenthe AmericancolonistsandWUkesis between the British state and disgruntled colonists were beyond repair. WorthingtonC.Ford,ed.,"John WilkesandBoston,"Massachusetts By threatening to form their own nation, the American colonists not only defied King HistoricalSociety,Proceedings, GeorgeIII, buttouchedoffa broaderEuropeanpowerstruggle. France and, byalliance, XLVni (Boston, 1914), 190-215. Spain and Holland had aligned themselves with the colonists by 1779. Prints such as ThePresentState ofGreatBritain (fig. 2,page 7) highlight Britain's perceived vulnerabil- ity. Allegorized as a hapless sentry dozing on his watch, England is defended from the menacing gestures ofthe French by a Scot who safeguards his liberty pole even as the Dutch pickhis pockets andAmerica absconds with his libertycap. Prints fi-om this period frequentlyallegorizedAmerica as the "'savage"female counter to Britannia, asymbolofthestatesincetheRomanera(fig. I,page8). HereAmericaischar- acterized as the scantily clad and, by implication, licentious daughter ofa chaste and classicalmother. Afterthewar. LoyalistswhoremainedsupportersoftheCrowneitherchosetoemigrateor elsewere forced to turn theirpropertyoverto patriots. TheSavagesletloose (fig.'\,page 10) draws an uneasy analogy between the American patriots and the natives, likening the colonists to male Indians torturing the Crown's loyal subjects. "A VAST, TREMENDOUS, UNFORMED SPECTRE" The French RevolutiontoppledFrance'sexistingmonarchyandplacedpoliticalpowerin thehandsof"the people."The eventsof1789,whichinstalledaFrenchNationalAssem- blyfoundedontheprincipleofpopularsovereigntyandreducedthepowerofKingLouis XVI,wereapprehendedthroughoutEuropeasathreattoabsolutism. Butitwasthecom- ing ofthe Reign ofTerror in 1793, signaled by the guillotining ofLouis and his wife MarieAntoinetteandofthousandsofsuspected "coimterrevolutionaries,"thatcausedthe rulingclassesofEuropeto quake.TheTerrorwasledbyMaximilienRobespierre,whose JacobinpoUticalclub became the symbolofmobruleforthose Europeanmonarchswho 9 FIGLTJE4: Anon\Tnous ThtSavagesletloose.Or TheCruelFateoftheLoyalists, 1783 etching GiftofMissSusanDwightBliss 1963.295