The Wine Duty, or the Triumph of Bacchus & Silenus

As the war against France continued into 1796, Prime Minister William Pitt and his Secretary of State, Henry Dundas, had to keep coming up with new taxes to pay for the ongoing expenses of the conflict. Gillray had already satirized Pitt's Hat tax in Le Bonnet Rouge, or John Bull Evading the Hat Tax (April 5) and his tax on an Englishman's best friend in The Dog Tax (April 12). Now there was a proposal before Parliament of additional duties on top of the existing taxes on wine, so once again Gillray reponded.

Pitt and Dundas are shown as the young wine god, Dionysus (or Bacchus as he was known in the Roman world) and his older companion and advisor, the ever drunken Silenus flaunting their inebriation, and enjoying the pleasures of wine that poor John Bull can no longer afford.

That portrayal was not entirely a stretch. Both Pitt and Dundas were hard drinkers in an age of hard drinkers. In one story of their prowess, (included in Timbs, J. (ed.) (1864) A century of Anecdote from 1760 to 1860, Volume 1. London: Richard Bentley, p. 58) the pair were reported to have polished off seven bottles in one evening "at an inn on the Kent Road." In another story, retold by Malory Nye (in "Henry Dundas, the First Viscount Melville: why and how should Scotland remember him?") Pitt and Dundas were supposed to have

both consumed rather a lot of wine one evening when they were called back into the house of commons. Pitt found difficulties, saying to his friend Dundas that he could not see the speaker. Dundas replied that he had no such problem seeing the speaker, in fact he could see two of him.

Gillray had himself duly noted the hard drinking propensity of the two statesmen a year earlier in God Save the King in a Bumper (1795) whose subtitle is "an evening scene,[repeated] three times a week at Wimbleton," where both Pitt and Dundas had residences. As usual, in both prints, the Scotsman, Dundas, is identified by his tartan.

In The Wine Duty the pair are confronted by a poorer than usual John Bull with empty bottles under his arm and an empty purse in his hand.

Pray Mr Bacchus have a bit of consideration for old John; - you know as how I've emptied my Purse already for you - & its waundedly hard to raise the price of a drop of Comfort, now that one's got no Money left for to pay for it!!!

The response from Pitt/Bacchus is notably unsympathetic.

Twenty Pounds a T-Tun, ad-additional Duty i-i-if you d-d-don't like it at that, why t-t-t-then Dad & I will keep it all for o-o-our own Drinking.

Silenus was sometimes described as a foster-father to Bacchus, so Gillray is suggesting that Pitt and Dundas will feast upon the surplus that will result from John's poverty. To add injury to insult, the whole cask rests upon the Treasury Bench, suggesting that is being paid by public funds as part of Pitt's expenses as First Lord of the Treasury.

Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on The Wine Duty, or the Triumph of Bacchus & Silenus.
• "Dionysus," Wikipedia
• "Silenus," Wikipedia
• "William Pitt the Younger," Wikipedia
• "Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville," Wikipedia
• Thomas Wright and R.H. Evans, Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray #149.
• Thomas Wright and Joseph Grego, The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist; With the History of His Life and Times, pp. 202-203.