The Magnanimous Ally

This is the second of two versions of a portrait caricature of Paul the First, Emperor of Russia, son of Catherine the Great. It was published in January 1801 when Paul had become a persona non grata in British circles after resigning from the alliance with Britain and Austria against France and indeed becoming increasingly adversarial over shipping rights in the Baltic as a result of a dispute over Malta.

The situation is described, as it was just becoming known, in The Albion or Evening Advertiser for November 27, 1800:

the Emperor of Russia has ordered about seventy British vessels to be detained during his pleasure, in the Baltic. . . [and] there is not only an embargo laid on the shipping in the Russian ports, but. . .his Imperial Majesty has ordered all the British property in his dominions to be sequestrated. . . .The Russian Sovereign, it is stated, has been induced to adopt this unexpected and extraordinary measure on the following ground: It is said, that about a fortnight before the French troops in Malta surrendered to the British blockading forces, the Consulate had formally surrendered that island to the Czar. In consequence of this cession, it is reported, he demanded that the island should be given up to him; but the answer of his Majesty's Ministers not being agreeable to his wishes, he is said to have resorted to the step above stated.

Such behavior, The Albion concluded, if true, " would amount to a declaration of war."

It was true; and for the next month or more, British newspapers were filled with further descriptions of this untoward turn of events, its implications for Britain, and the planned British response. But to make matters worse, in December Paul began singing the praises of Napoleon Bonaparte, calling him "the greatest man in the world."

There are three significant differences between the first and second versions of the print. And in the context just described, none of them is surprising. First, in this version, instead of treading on the French revolutionary flag, Paul now stands on the torn"Treaty of Alliance" with England which, of course, Paul had just trashed. And instead of a blank seascape behind him, there is now the island of Malta with its offending British flag, the proximate cause of the breakup. And finally, Gillray provides a new heading for the print parodying the famous Latin phrase of Juvenal describing what is most important and necessary in life: mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a sound body). Gillray's parody describes the madman Paul who was soon to be strangled by his own former officers (March 23, 1801): "mens turpis corpore turpi" (a vile mind in a vile body).

Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on The Magnanimous Ally.
• Draper Hill, Mr. Gillray The Caricaturist, 1965, p. 81n
• "Paul I of Russia," Wikipedia
• "War of the Second Coalition," Wikipedia
• Thomas Wright and R.H. Evans, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray #256
• Thomas Wright and Joseph Grego, The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist; With the History of His Life and Times p. 273

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