A Keen-Sighted Politician Warming His Imagination

This is the second of two satiric prints created in May and June 1795 featuring William Wyndham Grenville, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and thus the man immediately responsible for the prosecution of the war with France.

A Keen-Sighted Politician Warming His Imagination

A Keen-Sighted Politician Warming His Imagination [June 13, 1795]
© Trustees of the British Museum

At the time this print appeared, the war (as is perhaps suggested by the chaotic Map of British Victories on the Continent on the wall above the fireplace) was going from bad to worse. The French army had overrun the Netherlands, driving out William V of Orange, and establishing a new government there, the Batavian Republic, that opposed British interests. Prussia, another member of the so called First Coalition against France, then left the Coalition to make its own separate peace recognizing French acquisitions. Meanwhile British attempts to rally the Royalists in the Vendee and Paris also failed. And in July (soon after this print was published) Spain made its own separate peace with France, leaving Britain with mounting debts and few allies.

Not surprisingly, in Parliament, there were repeated calls to make peace with France. As reported in the Morning Chronicle for June 6th, 1795, the Earl of Guildford "in a very animated and eloquent speech"

expressed himself very much dissatisfied with the conduct of his Majesty's Ministers who seemed now determined to risk the total ruin of this country rather than give up their stations. From time to time they had predicted the speedy conquest of France, and all that while [the French forces] had conquered province after province and kingdom after kingdom. . . . He lamented that a British Cabinet should now be the only obstacle to the general tranquility of Europe and he advised their Lordships to step forward and put a stop to proceedings which might end in the ruin of the country; for by such conduct as [the] Ministers [now] observed, it appears as if they were determined to proceed until the destruction of this country or of France is effected.

In his previous prints featuring Grenville, A Good Shot, or Billy Ranger. . . (1792) and A Keen-Sighted Politician Finding out the British Conquests (1795) Gillray portrayed Grenville as tireless in his pursuit of money and position. Here, Gillray acknowledges his intelligence and the "plenteous stores of knowledge" he has at his disposal, but he also regards him as a pogy, a person living off the state. And Gillray suggests that what fires Lord Pogy's imagination and what constitutes the "Fundamental Principles of Government" in Pogy's view is keeping his place in the reigning administration with his broad-bottom firmly cemented to the Treasury Bench. The volumes of Court Cookery and Locke on Human Understanding on the mantel behind him may suggest his shrewdness and success in doing just that.

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