True reform of Parliament, i.e., Patriots lighting a revolutionary-bonfire in New Palace Yard [graphic] / Js. Gillray inv. & fect.

"Sir Francis Burdett declaims, holding up a bonnet rouge shaped like a fool's cap; he addresses those who are making a bonfire of statutes, &c., on the cobbles of Palace Yard (left). His raised left arm is flung back, pointing towards Westminster Hall, which is being stoned and demolished by a mob. He says: "It is only in the House of Commons / "that the People of England are spoken of / "with Contempt, & calumniated!!!-- / "--can things be remedied by Bills? No!-- / "it must be by an Honest House of "Commons!--what is the use of Magna-Charta, Habeas-Corpus, / "or the Bill of Rights?-- / See, my own Speech at Westminster--Vide, "Cobbett's Patriotic Register. He tramples on a sceptre beside which lies a crown, reversed and covered by a long scroll: Resolution[s] of the Whig-Club; Resolved--That it is the decided Opinion of this Club that no Substantial & permament [sic] Good can be derived by the Country, from any change of Ministry, unless accompanied by an entire change of Systemn--accomplish'd by an entire Reform of the Parliament. A great pile of documents with a Holy Bible in the centre, is ready for the flames; Horne Tooke, in bonnet rouge, dressing-gown, and slippers, kneels at Burdett's feet, holding a dark lantern (as in No. 10738), and applying a flaming brand, inscribed Sedition, to the pile. Three simian and negroid creatures holding papers like sub-human newsboys, as in Gillray's New Morality [No. 9240], apply torches to the pile. One, with a tartan cloth round its waist, holds the Edinburgh Review, another the Morning Chronicle; the third wears a wig inscribed Independ[ent] Wig. Under Tooke's firebrand are the Rights of the House of Brunswick to the Throne Brunswick Succession; Magna Charta; Bill of Rights; Habeas Corpus. Other documents are Act for Punishing Libelers of the State, and Act to Suppress Inflamatory Libels (attacked by the Independent Wig and Morning Chronicle respectively); Legal Authorities; Rights of the Establish'd Church; Rights of the House of Lords; Priviliges of the He of Commons; Act of Protestant Succession; Freedom of Election; Old-Bailey Trials. ..."--British Museum online catalogue.