Third-Party Politics: Britain, France, and America in an Age of Revolution

2009·1.4 MB·English

by  Bowdoin College. Museum of Art

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