Integrity Retiring from Office

The impetus for this print was the resignation of Prime Minister William Pitt approximately two weeks earlier over the issue of Catholic Emancipation. To quell the unrest in Ireland which had led to the Wexford Rebellion of May, 1798, Pitt had taken steps to address political and economic inequities between the two nations the most sweeping of which was the Act of Union (1800) which abolished the separate Irish Parliament and gave Ireland representation in the British House of Commons and Lords. For Pitt, this was to be a prelude to allowing the Catholic majority in Ireland the opportunity to hold office in the British government. But King George balked, declaring that such a move would violate his coronation oath to protect the established Anglican Church. Pitt then resigned rather than break his implicit promise to the Irish Catholics who voted for the formation of a United Kingdom.

Integrity Retiring from Office

Integrity Retiring from Office [February 24, 1801]
© Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

As the editors of London und Paris first noticed, the print falls into two contrasting parts with the sentry brandishing a bayonet acting as divider. On the one side is the orderly procession of departing Tory Ministers emerging from the Treasury Gate. On the other side is the utter chaos of Whigs threatening Pitt and clamoring for places. Within that basic contrast of order versus disorder, passionate self-interest and dispassionate integrity, the print is designed as a series of arches. The main arch is that of the Treasury entrance from which Pitt strides with classical nobility, looking across with dismay at the palpable threat from the Whiggish mob, but nonetheless holding on to a paper inscribed with the words, "Justice of the Emancipation of ye Catholicks."

Pitt is followed by some of the major cabinet members who left office with him. Those include Henry Dundas, Pitt's longtime friend and associate, identified by the papers protruding from his pocket and right hand: "Successes in the East." and "Advantages of the Union." These refer to his deep involvement with the expansion of the East India Company, and, based on his own experience in Britain as a Scot, his support for integrating Ireland into a fully United Kingdom.

He, in turn, is followed by William Grenville, Pitt's cousin and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in his Peer's robes, holding a paper listing "Acquisitions from ye War. Malta, Cape of Good Hope, Dutch Islands, etc." Behind Grenville (from left to right) are Earl Spencer, Lord of the Admiralty, identified by the paper in front of him, reading "Enemies Ships taken and Des[troyed]," and Loughborough, in his ceremonial Chancellor's wig.

A second arch is formed by the flying debris being hurled at the departing Tories, including a variety of vegetables—especially (Irish) potatoes, a broken club, a book of "Jacobin Charges, Speeches and Essays," and a pewter mug of "Whitbread's Entire." The path of a smoking fire cracker forms additional arches along with the words of the mob and sentry. Beneath these arches are a number of the most recognizable Whigs, including Richard Brinsley Sheridan (as butcher), George Tierney (as shoemaker) the lawyer Joseph Jekyll (as chimney sweep), the Duke of Norfolk (wielding his ever-present bottle of port as a weapon), Sir Francis Burdett (partially obscured), the horse and race-loving Duke of Bedford (as jockey), and one-eyed Nicholls (holding a revolutionary bonnet rouge). Two boys from radical newspapers contribute to the din and confusion with their trumpets. The bald man next to Nicholls has been identified as Thomas Tyrwhitt Jones, but this is unikely. According to The History of Parliament, Jones had seceded from the Whig Club in 1792, and in 1799 Gillray had already portrayed Jones under the title of Independence and would hardly have included him among a crowd of staunch Whigs.

Between the arches demarcating Tories and Whigs a placard appears on the Sentry's Box with the words: G.R. [George Rex, i.e. King George] Orders for keeping all improper persons out of the Public Offices. The sentry with his back to us also has a "G.R." on his busby suggesting that he is or at least represents George III. The obvious candidates for the "improper persons" he is charged with excluding can be seen as the rabble-rousing Whigs, who cry out "Push on, dam'me! Work'em! It's our Turn now!" But the other, not-so-obvious candidates are Irish Catholics, the very people for whom Pitt is resigning. So almost literally at the center of the print there is an ambiguity about the scope of its satiric intentions. In celebrating Pitt and the Tories for their integrity, is Gillray implicitly attacking the King as well as the Whigs? And is it an accident that the Sentry's bayonet is aimed at the Irishman, Sheridan?

The title of the print is accompanied by some lines based upon a well-known quotation from the Ode of Horace "On Integrity and Perseverance" (Book III Number 3).

Men in conscious Virtue bold!
Who dare their Honest purpose hold.
Nor heed the Mob's tumultuous cries;
And the vile rage of Jacobins - despise.

Gillray almost certainly derived his version from that of Philip Francis whose translations of Horace, including the Odes, Epodes, and Carmen Seculare, were first published in London in 1743 and which Samuel Johnson considered the best of his time.

The Man in conscious Virtue bold!
Who dares his secret purpose hold.
Unshaken hears the crowd's tumultuous cries;
And the impetuous tyrant's angry brow defies.

As Gillray and at least some of his educated audience would have known, the complete quotation, along with the ambiguous placard, suggests that a truly virtuous man should be willing to defy both a rabble mob and an impetuous and tyrannical king. And this is indeed what Pitt is doing.

Gillray was, at this time, through Canning, still on the payroll of the Pitt administration, so he had an obvious financial incentive to portray Pitt in a favorable light. But though Gillray could differ from Pitt on specific policies (and was not shy about expressing his disagreement), there is no reason to doubt that in this case, his regret at Pitt's resignation is genuine. In general, he is far more sympathetic to Pitt than Fox for whom he had an utter disdain. As early as 1793, well before his pension in 1797, for instance, Gillray was already portraying Pitt in Britannia between Scylla and Charybdis as England's best guide in the stormy seas of politics.

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