“For had he to women been ever a friend,
Nor by taxing them tried our old taxes to mend,
Yet so stingy he is, that none can contend
For Sir Cecil Wray.”
[Page 282.
The fact that Wray—who, as a double “Renegado,” shortly rejoined the Whigs—appears to have gained but scant sympathy, was defeated and done for, is turned to satirical account in a travestied view of Fox, North, and the Duchess—the latter wearing a foxtail in her hat—“For the Benefit of the Champion.—A Catch, to be performed at the New Theatre, Covent Garden. For admission apply to the Duchess. N.B.—Gratis to those who wear large tails;” the lady is pointing to a headstone put up in memory of “Poor Cecil Wray, Dead and turned to Clay.”
| Duchess of Devonshire. | Charles James Fox. | Lord North. |
FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE CHAMPION—A CATCH. DEFEAT OF THE MINISTERIAL CANDIDATE, SIR CECIL WRAY, WESTMINSTER ELECTION. 1784. BY T. ROWLANDSON.
“Oh! help Judas, lest he fall into the Pitt of Ingratitude!!!
“The prayers of all bad Christians, Heathens, Infidels, and Devil’s Agents, are most earnestly requested for their dear friend Judas Iscariot, Knight of the back-stairs, lying at the period of political dissolution, having received a dreadful wound from the exertions of the lovers of liberty and the constitution, in the poll of the last ten days at the Hustings, nigh unto the Place of Cabbages.”
The fate of Wray, with Fox reinstated in his seat for Westminster, and the concluding election scenes at Covent Garden are figured in “The Westminster Deserter Drumm’d out of the Regiment.” Sam House, with his perfectly bald head, and dressed in the clean and natty nankeen jacket and trousers, his invariable wear summer and winter, is drumming Wray off the stage: “May all Deserters feel Public Resentment”—is the sentiment of both the indignant Chelsea veterans and buxom maid-servants to whom Wray’s projects had given mortal offence. “The Man of the People” is planting the standard of Liberty and Britannia, and acknowledging his gratitude to his supporters with simple fervour—“Friends and fellow-citizens, I cannot find words to express my feelings to you on the victory.”
Finally, as an apotheosis of the fair champion who had contributed most of all to the success and glory of the triumph over the Court, Rowlandson etched the allegorical picture of “Liberty and Fame introducing Female Patriotism to Britannia.”