The Tyrant Consul, then too late,
Dismayed shall mourn th’ avenging blow
Yet vanquish’d, meet the milder fate
Which mercy grants a fallen foe:
Thus shall the British banners fly, boys,
On Albion’s cliffs still rais’d on high, boys,
And while the gallant flag we see,
We’ll swear our watchword still shall be
Britons strike home, &c.
About the last caricature in this month was by I. Cruikshank, who depicted Napoleon (July 28, 1803) as ‘Preparing to invade.’ He is pouring himself out a bumper, and soliloquising, ‘I must take a little Dutch Courage, for I am sure I shall never attempt it in my sober senses! Besides, when John Bull catches me, I can plead it was only a Drunken Frolick! Diable! if I not go, den all my Soldiers call me one Braggadocio, and one Coward, and if I do, begor, dey vil shew me in the Tower, as one very Great Wild Beast.’
I. Cruikshank (July 28, 1803) tells us ‘How to stop an invader.’ Napoleon, and his army, are represented as having landed, and he is asking ‘Which is the way to London?’ A countryman replies, giving emphasis to his words by driving his pitchfork deeply into the Consul’s breast, ‘Why, thro’ my Body—but I’se be thro’ yourn virst.’ His wife, as a type of what was expected of the women of England, is emptying the offensive contents of a domestic utensil over him. Bulldogs are let loose, and are rapidly making an end of their enemies, in which laudable enterprise they are materially assisted by prize-fighters and carters.
The month of August was very fruitful in caricature, for in that month, and in September, the Invasion scare was at its height.
There was an immense amount of Gasconading and Braggadocio going about, as senseless as it was improbable. Take this for example: ‘The Consequence of Invasion, or the Hero’s Reward. None but the brave deserve the fair. The Yeomanry Cavalry’s first Essay’ (Ansell, August 1, 1803). A stout yeoman is swaggering about, with his sword drawn, and carrying a pole, on the top of which is Bonaparte’s head, and, lower down, he grasps some fifteen or twenty bleeding heads of decapitated Frenchmen. He is saying, ‘There, you Rogues, there! there’s the Boney parts of them. Twenty more; Killed them!! Twenty more; Killed them too!! I have destroyed half the army with this same Toledo.’ Women from all parts are coming to hug and caress him, saying, ‘Bless the Warrior that saved our Virgin Charms.’ ‘Ah! bless him, he has saved us from Death and Vileation.’ ‘Take care, I’ll smother him with kisses.’ One lady says to a man, not a Volunteer: ‘There you Poltroon look how that Noble Hero’s caressed!’ whilst the poor wretch thus addressed exclaims, ‘Ods Niggins, I wish I had been a Soldier too, then the Girls would have run after me, but I never could bear the smell of Gunpowder.’
‘John Bull offering Little Boney fair play’ is the title of one of Gillray’s pictures (August 2, 1803), and depicts the fortified coasts on both sides of the Channel, with John Bull, as a Jack Tar, stripped to the waist for action. He wades half across to hurl defiance at his foe. ‘You’re a coming? You be d—d! If you mean to invade us, why make such a rout? I say little Boney, why don’t you come out? yes, d—n ye, why don’t ye come out?’ Meanwhile Boney, secure in his fortress, and with his flotilla safe on shore, looks over the parapet, and says, ‘I’m a coming! I’m a coming!!!’
His epitaph was even obligingly written for him during his lifetime, and here it is:—
EPITAPH
Underneath a Gibbet, over a Dunghill near Hastings,
close by the Sea Beach.
Underneath this Dunghill
Is all that remains of a mighty Conqueror,
NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.
Who, with inflexible Cruelty of Heart,
And unexampled depravity of Mind,
Was permitted to scourge the Earth, for a Time,
With all the Horrors of War:
Too ignorant, and incapable, to do good to Mankind,
The whole Force of his Mind was employed
In oppressing the Weak, and plundering the Industrious:
He was equally detested by all;
His enemies he butchered in cold Blood;
And fearing to leave incomplete the Catalogue of his Crimes,
His friends he rewarded with a poison’d Chalice.
He was an Epitome
Of all that was vicious in the worst of Tyrants;
He possess’d their Cruelty, without their Talents;
Their Madness, without their Genius;
The Baseness of one, and the Imbecility of another.
Providence, at last,
Wearied out with his Crimes,
Returned him to the Dunghill from which he sprung;
After having held him forth
On the neighbouring Gibbet,
As a Scare-crow to the Invaders of the British Coast.
This Beach,
The only Spot in our Isle polluted by his footsteps;
This Dunghill
All that remains to him of his boasted Conquest.
Briton!
Ere you pass by
Kneel and thank thy God,
For all the Blessings of thy glorious Constitution;
Then return unto the peaceful Bosom of thy Family, and continue
In the Practice of those Virtues,
By which thy Ancestors
Merited the Favor of the Almighty.
I. Cruikshank, in ‘Johnny Bull giving Boney a Pull’ (August 7, 1803), brought out a caricature in which is graphically depicted the total annihilation of the French flotilla, and John Bull is dragging Napoleon, by a cord round his neck, to a gallows, surrounded by people waving their hats in token of joy. Napoleon, not unnaturally, hangs back, remarking, ‘Ah! Misericordi! Ah! Misericordi! Jean Bool, Jean Bool, hanging not good for Frenchmen.’ But John pulls along manfully, exclaiming, ‘I shant measure the Cord, you F——. I am sure it is long enough for a dozen such Fellows as you.’