Me teach de English republicans to work scene, a ploughed field / [graphic]

"Beneath the title is etched on a separate plate: 'Description - A Row of English People in Tatters, and wooden Shoes, hoeing a Field of Garlic. A tall raw-boned Frenchman, with a long Queue behind, like a Negro Driver with a long Waggoner's Whip in each Hand, walking by their side. The People very sulky, but tolerably obedient & tractable for so short a Time ; John Bull being a bad Lad only when you are very good to him. The Group of the hoers are, a Husbandman, his Wife, a Manufacturer, a Curate, & an Old man; - in another Part of the Field [middle distance, left], four other English people, a Father & Son (Husbandmen) with two Seamen, in a Yoke, drawing a Plough ; a French Farmer guiding it with one Hand, & with the other flourishing & cracking a French Postillion's long Whip ; a French Boy walking by the side of the Yoke with a Goad, which has a Point as sharp as a Needle, the French Hoe-driver gives his Instructions thus: "Jacques Roast-Beef, hoe straight, deep, quick & rest not." - The Instructions of the French Holder of the Plough are - "Monsieur John Bull mon Ami", (in English) My Friend, Mr John Bull, pull hard, plough deep, trot quick, turn sudden, & rest not," - A Messager d'Etat, (in English) a Messenger of State in his Habit of Office, with a Letter in his Hand, comes to hurry on the work for the Exigencies of War. - In another part of the Plate [left] stand the Farm Offices ; a vast oak, withered, above them, - A Caldron boiling, on which is engraved, Soup Maigre, with a stack of Onions & Turnips close by it. On a large Board is painted - "Regulations of this Farm., - ["At Five o'clock in the Morning the Hogs & English Slaves are \ "to be fed; at Twelve O'Clock at Night they are to be suppered, \ "& littered up with the best Straw that the Scotch & Irish part \ "of the Slaves can steal from the neighbouring Farms, & then \ "locked up. But there are Holes in the Bottom of the Walls \ "for the Hogs to go out, & get the Benefit of Fresh Air. - \ "Punishment of Laziness, for the first Offence, five hundred \ "Lashes; for the second, the Guillotine. All other Crimes, ex \ "-cept those which affect Frenchmen, are forgiven on Promise \ "of Amendment." - A Ballad is lying on the Ground in the English Language, entitled, "Recantation of British \ & Irish Republican Husbandmen & Manufacturers. - The Burden of the Song is - "Oh, England, England! \ "King, Wife, Sons & Daughters of our King, of \ "whom the Sons are all brave, & the Daughters \ "all beautiful: Parliament & Judges, who covered \ "us with Blessings, which are repaid with Reproaches. \ "Clergy who taught us to die as well as to live for \ "our country - Landaff, Landaff. - Nobles & \ "Squires in whose Hospitality & Bounty we shared. - \ "St Vincents & Duncans. Merchants, Master Manufacturer[s] \ "who lived as simply as ourselves, but both of us well; "how could we forget you? You would not have de- \ "serted us; but we deserted you. - But with the same \ "Weapons which should have defended you, we will \ "punish ourselves. We despise Life, we could submit to \ "Misfortune, but cannot bear the Consciousness of \ "not having stood or fallen with you. Oh England, \ "England, Country of every Bliss, for ever farewell!' [Dalrymple, op. cit., pp. 5-6, 33-5.] The hoe-driver stands on the left of the line of hoers (right), who advance diagonally. The husbandman is a fat John Bull, his wife a comely woman. Beyond the 'old man' is a fifth man on the extreme right Gillray has added in the foreground a ragged hoer suspiciously like Fox, cf. BMSat 9180, &c. The four men yoked to the plough do not resemble seamen. The print otherwise follows the description; the 'Messager d'État' is dressed exactly as in BMSat 9213. All the Englishmen wear large wooden shoes, emblems of servitude."--British Museum online catalogue