Patriots Amusing Themselves; or Swedes Practising at a Post

This is one of at least two Gillray prints prompted by the recent assassination of Gustav III, the King of Sweden. The other is Taking Physick; or the News of Shooting the King of Sweden!

Patriots Amusing Themselves; or Swedes Practising at a Post

Patriots Amusing Themselves; or Swedes Practising at a Post
[April 19, 1792]
© Trustees of the British Museum

On the 29th of March, 1792, Sweden's King Gustav III had died of a gunshot wound he received in an attack that took place while he was attending a masquerade at the Royal Swedish Opera House. The so called arstocratic coup had been planned and excecuted by small group of Swedish "patriots" who resented Gustav's increasingly absolutist rule, which diminished the power of the aristocracy and abolished many of their previous privileges. One of the powers now concentrated in the King alone was that of waging war, and at the time of his death, Gustav was planning an attack along with Russia upon revolutionary France. A long-time friend and ally of the French King Louis XVI, Gustav rightly perceived the French Revolution as a threat not only to the French Monarch but monarchs throughout Europe.

Taking advantage of the interest in the murder of the Swedish King and the speculation about his assassins, Gillray portrays three of the best known Whigs as Swedish-style "patriots," practicing for the assassination of King George. But in this case, the assassins are clearly inspired by the French Revolution. The Whig Leader, Charles James Fox, wielding a blunderbuss appropriate to his outsized girth and rhetoric, has the words of the signature song of the revolution (Ca Ira) emblazoned on his hat. The dissenting minister and liberal political theorist, Joseph Priestley, offers pistol wadding from two decidedly revolutionary volumes labeled "On the Glory of Revolution," and "On the Folly of Religion and Order" And Whig politician and former playwright, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, preparing his pistol, looks forward gleefully to take his turn at shooting at the King George look-alike post, exclaiming

O Heavens! if I could but once Pop the Post!!! then you and me, - Dear Brother P, - Would sing with glee, - Full merrily Ca-ira! Ca-ira! Ca-ira!

As startling at it may seem today to suggest that a group of politicians was actively practicing the assassination of the King, this was not the first nor the most audacious instance of Gillray portraying Fox, Sheridan, and Priestley as potential regicides. In The Hopes of the Party Prior to July 14th (07/19/1791), Fox is actually shown wielding the executioner's axe, while Sheridan steadies the King's head, and Priestley offers the rationalist's consolation that an afterlife is but a "religious imposition." In contrast, Patriots Amusing Themselves distances the impact of the deed by turning King George into a post with a target on his bottom.

One of the King's favorite activities was hunting, so it may not be totally inappropriate for Gillray to portray the George look-alike post wearing a hunting cap. But Gillray may also have noticed that reports in both the London Times (April 10) and the St James Chronicle (April 7) included both George's latest hunting expedition and the assassination of the Swedish King on the same page, provoking perhaps the ironic reflection of how quickly, in these revolutionary times, the hunter could become the hunted.

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