The Explanation

This is one of those prints that reminds us that Gillray's job as a graphic artist and caricaturist was not only to produce political satire, but to provide compelling images recording the major news of the day. And what could be more news-worthy and compelling than a duel between the current Prime Minister William Pitt and one of the leaders of the opposition Whigs, George Tierney?

The Explanation

The Explanation [May 30, 1798]
© Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

NOTE: In what follows (unless otherwise indicated), all my quotations are drawn from the May 25—May 28, 1798 issue of Lloyd's Evening Post which was published closest to the actual events. You can read the bulk of it for yourself by selecting the following two links:

Other accounts appeared in the Express and Evening Chronicle (May 31), the European Magazine and London Review (June 1), the Scots Magazine (June 1), and the Aberdeen Magazine or Universal Repository (June 1). In addition to these contemporary sources, Thomas Wright and R.H. Evans provide an unusally lengthy and comprehensive summary in their commentary on the print.

The dispute started on Friday May 25th during the debate in the House of Commons over a bill "for the more effectual Manning of his Majesty's Navy" which would immediately increase the naval forces by 10,000 men. Pitt's intention was also

if the House coincided with him, that the Bill to be proposed should pass through its respective stages in the course of that evening, and be afterwards sent to the Lords. . . Mr. TIERNEY expressed his surprise at the extraordinary mode of proceeding now proposed. He had supposed that the Bill to be introduced respected the augmentation of the Navy in the usual way, and [he] could not comprehend the necessity why the Bill should be passed within a few hours.

For both sides, this was a particularly tense moment. The first skirmishes of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 had just begun on May 24th and would soon spread in size and violence. In the same issue of Lloyd's Evening Post there were detailed reports from the trial of Arthur O'Connor at Maidstone for attempting to coordinate an earlier French invasion of Ireland to coincide with a similar Irish rebellion. From Pitt's point of view, it was easy to see any Whig opposition as a cover for French subterfuge. On the Whig side, they had already witnessed the suspension of habeas corpus and the passage of the Treasonable Practices and Seditious Meetings Acts, restricting the individual right to assemble and freedom of the press. So the present determination to push through legislation without due process was just one more indication of an increasingly imperial ministry.

Pitt responded to Tierney's resistance with nervous and unaccustomed belligerence, suggesting that Tierney's opposition to the measure could only be accounted for by "a desire to obstruct the Defence of the Country." On his side, Tierney was understandably upset by what he understood to be an ad hominem attack on his patriotism, and appealed to the Chair for protection. The Chair agreed that any such personal imputation was unparliamentary and that "It was for the Right Hon. Gentleman [Pitt] to explain his meaning, and for the House to consider whether the words used conveyed such an imputation." Suprisingly, Pitt doubled down on his assertion saying "he was afraid the House must wait a long while before they heard such an explanation as was demanded of him," and refused to retract any of his statements. In consequence, Tierney left the chamber soon thereafter to prepare his challenge.

The duel was fought on Sunday May 28th. Wright and Evans argue for a different location, but all the contemporary accounts agree that it took place on Putney Heath. And the European Magazine and London Review includes the additional information (realized in Gillray's print) that it was fought "near Abershaw's gibbet" which was, in fact, located on Putney Heath. All accounts also agree that Mr. Dudley Ryder acted as second for Pitt, and Mr. George Walpole for Tierney. Walpole is further identified by the words Gillray puts in his mouth: "O Lord! [this duel] is worse than ye Morroon business!" Walpole was well-known for his part in the suppression of an insurrection by Maroons in Jamaica in 1795.

The account in Lloyd's Evening Post continues:

After some ineffectual attempts on the part of the seconds to prevent farther proceedings, the parties took their ground at the distance of twelve paces. A case of pistols was fired at the same moment without effect. A second case was also fired in the same manner, Mr. Pitt firing his pistol in the air. The seconds then jointly interfered, and insisted that the matter should go no further, it being their decided opinion that sufficient satisfaction had been given, and that the business was ended with perfect honour to both parties.

Gillray portrays the moment when the first pistols have been discharged without effect and Pitt chose to fire his second pistol in the air. But here is where reportage turns into Tory propaganda. There is no record of any of the lofty words Gillray puts in Pitt's mouth— no denial of personal enmity, no mention of duty to King and Country. In fact, the King himself regarded Pitt's risky behavior as a dereliction of duty. "Public characters have no right to weigh alone what they owe to themselves;" (he wrote to Pitt) "they must consider what is due to their country,"*

And whereas Pitt and his second are barely caricatured and foregrounded, Tierney and his second are caricatured as ruthless revolutionaries and set farther back and smaller. Tierney's hat is decorated with a tricolor cockade, while his belt (inscribed with the word "egalité) holds two bloody daggers. (Ever since The Dagger Scene, or the Plot Discover'd daggers had been Gillray's favorite symbol of domestic treachery). His exclamation at missing Pitt is followed by an oath. And it is certainly no accident that Tierney's head is placed below Abershawe's gibbet as if ready (and deserving) to be hanged.

If we are to believe its publication date of May 30, Gillray produced The Explanation in two days. So it is not totally surprsing to find evidence of haste. It is there in the portrait of Walpole which is more crudely sketched than any of the other figures. But it is perhaps most evident in in the text bubbles. If I am right, Pitt's words "The only explanation I give is this!" are probably a later addition as are Walpole's words beginning "O Lord! O Lord!_if he had but been popped pff.". Notice, for instance, how (with the additions) Pitt's words now intrude awkwardly into the upper margin of the print; and Walpole's words now cut off part of the gibbet. That in turn suggests that Gillray only discovered his title and theme after he had finished recording the scene.

There was, however, at least one more evolution of the print. The first published state did not include Sir Francis Burdett as vulture perched on the gibbet overlooking the scene. The later (and more widely known) version squeezes him awkwardly on the small space left on the gibbet just over Tierney's head.

Detail from first state of The Explanation

Detail from the first state of The Explanation [May 30, 1798]
© Omek Marks, Private Collection

Along with Tierney, Burdett represented the new blood among the Whigs, one of the recent major spokesmen for Whig causes in Parliament. So if someone on the ministry side wanted him included, it made sense to group him with Tierney and his second even at the expense of the aesthetics of the print. But Gillray (or more likely his employers) went further, clearly wishing to tarnish him by portraying him as the worst kind of opportunist, willing to feed off the death of Pitt, Tierney or both.

* Quoted in Robin Reilly's William Pitt the Younger, 1978, pp.359-60.

Sources and Reading

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