The last grand ministerial expedition : on the strt Piccadilly / I. Ck.

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Isaac Cruikshank
1756?-1811?
The last grand ministerial expedition : on the strt Piccadilly / I. Ck.
[London] : Pubd by SW Fores 50 Picca.dilly, April 19th 1810
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
1986.500
Published: 
[London] : Pubd by SW Fores 50 Piccadilly, April 19th 1810.
Provenance: 
From the library of Gordon N. Ray.
Notes: 

Satire on the official use of troops to quell protestors gathered in support of Sir Francis Burdett following the issue of a warrant for his arrest by the House of Commons.
According to George and Krumbhaar, this print was executed by Isaac and George Cruikshank.

Summary: 

Print shows mounted soldiers ride down innocent pedestrians in a wide street; some fire at close range, others slash with sabres. With them, and in the middle of the road, ride three civilians: Perceval, in his Chancellor of the Exchequer's gown, grasps his horse's mane, saying, "This is far superior to the Walcheren Expedition, we shall get some Credit by this. Conquer all before us!!!" Lethbridge, his hair on end, has lost his stirrup; he says: "I wish I had never begun this business, dont leave me, stand by me pray do?" He addresses the back of a guardsman who is slashing at a prostrate woman. The third says "Little work & well paid to the Tower away". He is probably Sir Robert Salusbury who moved Burdett's committal. Women with children are conspicuous among the victims. In the foreground a woman holding an infant lies on her back, her legs waving over her head in a manner probably deriving from the fishwoman in Gillray's 'March to the Bank'. In the background (right) is the lower part of a large house (78 Piccadilly). A ladder leans against it; on this stands a top-booted constable, smashing a first-floor window with his staff.

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