Middlesex Election. 1804, – “a Long-Pull, a Strong-Pull, – and a PullAll-together.”-

James Gillray

Middlesex Election. 1804, – “a Long-Pull, a Strong-Pull, – and a PullAll-together.”-

London, H. Humphrey August 7^th 1804

Etching

Original hand-colouring

340 x 490mm

Trimmed within platemark, slight overall browning, slight brown staining affecting title area, neat repair affecting bottom left corner of title area

£2800

A very rare, large, complicated caricature. Sir Francis Burdett is being drawn in a carriage with decorated panels, by a team of his supporters, to the Hustings. He bows gracefully, his tricorne hat with its tricolour cockade, under his arm. His coachman is Horne Tooke who smokes a pipe with an extremely long stem and has a stream of speeches which he had supposedly written for Burdett flying out of his coat pocket. He flourishes his whip over the heads of Fox as a ragged chimney sweep, Norfolk in a striped nightshirt as the wheelers, next are Derby and Lansdowne as jockeys, while the leaders are Bedford and Nothumberland with Carlisle as a tall, skinny tailor as supernumerary. Up behind the carriage as footmen are Sheridan (waving a banner showing Pitt flogging a weeping Britannia), Erskine waving a Bonnet Rouge on a pole and Tierney who carries a large Key of the Bastille, while Lord Moira as a stiff soldier stands in the foreground beating a drum painted with the Prince of Wales Feathers.  The carriage runs over a dog with Cur-tis inscribed on its collar (the contractor Sir William Curtis), which bleeds guineas and on the left are Tyrwhitt Jones, General Walpole as a dwarfish soldier and Adair as a group of butchers waving bones and their cleavers. A rat, labelled No Ministerial Rats, hangs from a lamp post and a huge, cheering crowd accompanies the candidate. The Middlesex Election was hotly contested between Mainwaring and Burdett from July 23^rd to August 8^th. Due to a legal quibble, the poll was closed early. Mainwaring should have won but was excluded and his son was asked to stand instead. Burdett was the favourite of the mob and on August 8^th was drawn in his carriage  by the people from Brentford to the Crown and Anchor in the Strand. The election was finally reversed in favour of Burdett on petition. BM 10264.