A Warm Birth for the Old Administration

This is the second of several prints devoted to the transition from the old administration of Frederick Lord North to the new one nominally led by Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham but, in actuality, driven by Charles James Fox. North had resigned on the 27th of March, 1782 after the British defeat at Yorktown had become known. Rockingham succeeded him as First Lord of the Treasury while Fox became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

In contrast to the picture labeled "The Wisdom of Solomon" on the back wall, the King is pointedly asleep on the job. His crown is in his pocket (not on his head), his sceptre has fallen from his grasp, and his reading material (on candle snuffers) decidedly trivial and un-kinglike.

Meanwhile, with his pockets full of grapes, suggesting his successful quest for power, Fox oversees the removal of the King's former advisors to a "warm berth" in Hell (Pandemonium being the the capital of Hell in John Milton's Paradise Lost). With his left hand resting familiarly on the Devil's shoulder, and his right hand grasping North by the neckcloth, Fox explains to the "Old Boy" that North (Boreas, the north wind) would make "an excellent pair of bellows" to fan the flames of hell.

On the right, advisors to the North administration are being dragged, prodded, and carried to the mouth of hell by additional devils. Those advisors include (from left to right) Edward Thurlow. Lord Chancellor under North wearing the Chancellor's wig and robes; John Stuart the Scottish Earl of Bute, former tutor and longtime favorite of King George III wearing tartan; and two figures tied together on the back of a single devil. They are (on top) the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty under North who complains (appropriately) "We're sailing in a damn'd hot Latitude." and (below him) Lord George Germain who was Secretary of State for the American Department and bore much of the blame for North's misguided policy in the American War.

The thoroughly ironic subttitle of the print is taken from the Biblical Book of Proverbs 25:5: "Take the Wicked from before the King, & his Throne shall be establish'd in Righteousness."

Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on A Warm Birth for the Old Administration.
• Draper Hill, Mr. Gillray The Caricaturist, 1965, [p. 134 Plate 131.
• "Second Rockingham ministry," Wikipedia
• "North ministry," Wikipedia
• Thomas Wright and Joseph Grego, The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist; With the History of His Life and Times, p. 46.