About this image...
Image Title: The Colonies Reduced - Its Companion, 1767
Date: 1767
Summary: Print shows two illustrations on a single sheet, on the top, Britannia, as the Roman general Belisarius, is dismembered, her torso leaning against a globe with a banner "Date Obolum Belli Sario" (give a penny for Bellisarius) and her arms and legs, labeled "Virg-", "Pennsyl-", "New York", and "New Eng-" are scattered on the ground before her, an olive branch has dropped from one hand. Idle ships sit in the harbor in the backgound and a broken tree on the right mimics Britannia. The scene emphasizes America's poverty as a result of the Stamp Act. On the bottom, Lord Bute, while stabbing Britannia, lifts her skirt, exposing her buttocks to two men, one with a sword, the other with a cat-o'-nine-tails; a snake strikes at her knees. She has her spear aimed at America, a young Native woman, and has caught hold of her feathered skirt; America flees into the outstretched arms of a Frenchman who has both sword and pistol poised to defend her. Behind the melee a Dutchman makes off with a ship. The cartoonist blames the British government policies for alienating the American colonies.
Notes: Published in: The American Revolution in drawings and prints; a checklist of 1765-1790 graphics in the / Compiled by Donald H. Cresswell, with a foreword by Sinclair H. Hitchings. Washington : [For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off.], 1975, no. 632.|Published in: Rebellion and reconciliation : satirical prints on the Revolution at Williamsburg : [catalog] / by Joan D. Dolmetsch. Williamsburg, Va. : Colonial Williamsburg Foundation ; Charlottesville : distributed by University Press of Virginia, c1976, no. 15.|Exhibited: "Versailles and the American Revolution" at the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles, Versailles, France, July - October 2016.
Subjects: Britannia (Symbolic character)--1760-1770
Bute, John Stuart,--Earl of,--1713-1792
Fighting--1760-1770
Quadriplegics--England--1760-1770
United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783
Original Media: Etching
Collections: Cartoon Prints, British » more info...
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