The Kettle Hooting the Porridge-Pot

Using a variant of the old expression "the pot calling the kettle black," this delightful print shows the Earl of Shelburne (the kettle) pointing out the blackness of Fox (the pot) while clearly displaying his own black bottom.

This print was one of four created by Gillray in the aftermath of the death of Prime Minister, Charles Watson-Wentworth, Marquess of Rockingham on July 1st and the King's decision to replace him with William Petty, the Earl of Shelburne. Fox had hoped by resigning from office (as he did) on July 4, that he could draw enough cabinet members after him to cripple the new Shelburne ministry, and convince the King to nominate as Prime Minister the Fox-friendly Duke of Portland instead.

But as the smug expression on his face suggests, Shelburne was secure in the knowledge of being the King's first and preferred choice, so anyone who followed Fox out of office (like Burke) was likely to find himself a silly goose. Fox's departure from the cabinet was itself seen by the King as a black mark, a dereliction of duty which so tarnished his reputation in the King's eyes that Fox was not allowed to hold any cabinet-level position until the last two years of his life. As in Gloria Mundi and Crumbs of Comfort he was, in effect, banished and left to console himself by a return to his old gambling habits at Brooks's. Or as the gibbet/signpost behind him suggests— to consider suicide as an appropriate alternative which Gillray explores in Ahithophel in the Dumps

Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on The Kettle Hooting the Porridge-Pot.
• "Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham," Wikipedia
• "William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne," Wikipedia
• "Charles James Fox," Wikipedia
• "The pot calling the kettle black," Wikipedia