The T trade in hot water!, or, A pretty kettle of fish!!! Dedicated to T. Canister & T. Spoon Esquires / [graphic]

"A fantastic scene takes place in a cobbled street between two buildings: a large house (left) with the words 'London / Coffee / House' in huge letters above the ground, first, and second floors respectively; and (right) 'The London Tea House' on a façade above the shop-front of the 'Genuine Tea Company' [at 23 Ludgate Hill]. From a centre first-floor window of the latter steps a winged figure resembling Fame, blowing a trumpet from which issue the words 'No Adulteration'. A Chinese, resembling the figures on the trade-cards of tea-dealers, who seems to have walked out of the shop, holds a firebrand inscribed 'Pro Bono Publico' to an open tea-chest inscribed 'Chinese Gunpowder', the contents of which are exploding in flashes inscribed 'Genuine Tea' and terminating in black clouds, so as to tilt over a huge kettle inscribed 'Steam Engine' (which fills the greater part of the design and against which also Fame directs her blast), from which rise clouds of steam surrounding many little men who look out of the (lidless) kettle. The spout is inscribed 'Exchequer' and from it men (tea-dealers) are being poured head first into a china tea-pot (left) on which is a Chinese pattern: a tree with two branches, one inscribed 'To the Ks Bench', the other (in reversed characters) 'To Newgate'. One exclaims: "There was No Tea in the composition!!!!! yet they fined me £2320!!!" Another: "It's never too late to mend." Round the tea-pot lie bundles inscribed respectively: 'Clover & Ash'; 'Sloe leaves'; 'Verdigrease'; 'Potatoe Parings'; 'Dutch Pink'; 'Elder leaves'. Behind the spout is the word 'Bohea'. Other tea-dealers are falling from the kettle; one says: ""I wish to retrieve my Character" / "and I think that it is fair we / should All be Tarred" / with the same Mop.!!" vide report of the Meeting." Another: "We have been togathe [sic] & we'll go togather." In the centre of the tea-dealers emerging from the kettle is one represented by a chair with human head and arms, showing he is their Chairman (one Bedwells) and that a meeting of tea-dealers is represented: he holds out a paper: 'Tea paper Resolved--00000 Resolved--00000'. He says: "Gentlen, Unless we can make our Tea, a little better, depend upon it, we shall all go to pot! I am quite affected by it already-- but I hope I shall go to Bed-well." Beside him is a canister inscribed 'Ludgate Hill Gas'; on this sits a bird, chirping up at him. One of his audience says: "Aye, aye, we shall all be Dished"; another asks: "who calls, me a-ber-y." A man answers: ""I, said the Sparrow" vide Cock Robin." A man with an axe for head (? Axford): "I wish to Ax, if anybody can afford to sell cheaper?" The other speakers appear also to indicate their names: "Sharps the word"; "I'll be Secretary, for I'm the Man for a Brown Study"; "who talks about sloes & black Berries"; "Come down with your Dust: I'm Treasurer"; "This is a bad Day for us--O, it will play the devil with us this Winter"; "Let's Marshall ourselves against this new Tea Compy"; "I lament this exposure, it makes me as melancholy as a Gibbs [the s scored through] Cat." Some look from the right of the kettle towards the new shop: one (? Shaw) says: "who cares a Button?--'Shaw!"; others: "Let's throw as much dirt at Concern [sic] as we can"; "Take care you don't splash your self"; "That's right! [? Wright] pelt away, never mind dirtying ourselves." Other speeches rising in the steam are: "Mr Chair man I consider this a Second Gunpowder plot it is evidently so as they opened on the 5th of November"; "Suppose we meet in Holborn"; "Although the Names of certain persons have been suppressed in the public prints there is no doubt but the Commissioners of Excise will give facility to the exposure of every delinquent coming under thier notice--see report of the Meeting." A little boy stands below looking up at the kettle; he says: "My eye! how the scum bubbles up to the top!" On the ground (right) sits a street-seller with a large bundle of papers under her arm inscribed 'Resolutions of the T. Trade--&c &c.' Beside her are other papers: 'Resolutions, &c.' and 'Tea Paper'. She holds out a straw, saying, "Who'll buy my ha'porth of Straw?-- for my part, if I could get good Tea I should not care a straw who I bought it of!" Customers enter the shop of the 'Genuine Tea Company'. One lady on the pavement meets another, saying, "I am going to mak a purchase of this New tea Company." Her friend answers: "I have just been we may now I think ask each other to a Cup of Tea!" A grotesque dandy, in short loose trousers over high boots, inspects the shop through a glass, saying, "Excellent! establishment pon honor!!", while an old woman in a red cloak hurries in at the door, saying, "Now for a Good Cup of Tea once more." A dog of dachshund type with 'Tim' on its collar barks at this group."--British Museum online catalogue