Lord Sopesuds washing foul linen for the good of the nation

Lord North at a wash-tub, washing clothes, with women standing round him. He stands in profile to the left stooping over a tub resting on a square stool or table; he is in his shirt, with his sleeves tucked up, but wearing his garter ribbon. His coat, with its star, lies on a stool behind him. He says, "Oh Lord I wish that Fox at the Devil". In the foreground (left) a fox with playing-cards under its feet, is biting a sack inscribed "Budgett". One woman, in profile to the right, holds up her hands, saying "Poor man he must want a drop of comfort [i.e. gin]". A woman standing full face, behind the tub, says, "Look at him, see what he has got by his Taxation". The third woman stands behind North holding a cloth, and saying "He deserves this Clout pin'd to his tail". A small child with curly hair is looking over the edge of the wash-tub. Over North's head is suspended an axe, suggestive of the impeachment and capital punishment with which he had been threatened by the Opposition and Press, cf. BMSat 5660, 5661, 5964, 6046, &c. [Threats of impeachment and the block had been made by Burke and Fox, e.g. by Fox, 27 Nov. 1781, 'Parl. Hist.' xxii. 692: Ministers would he trusted expiate their measures "on the public scaffold".] The room is poverty-stricken, with plaster coming off the walls. On the table (left) is bottle and glass. In the foreground (right) is a barrel lying on its side inscribed "Gin". On the wall hangs a paper or broadside inscribed, "to praise Lord North i thirst it (?) no ten for he has [? illegible forborne] to tax our Dear Gin".--British Museum online catalogue