Originally posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2012
“Bank-Notes, _ Paper-Money, _ French Alarmists, _ o, the Devil, the Devil! _ ah! poor John-Bull!”
James Gillray was a famous British late 18th century caricaturist satirizing, among other things, British monetary policy. Lee Jackson — a shop in London offering antique maps, atlases & prints dating from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth centuries — describes this Gillray cartoon this way:
“Because of the need for gold for foreign trade during the war with the French, William Pitt the younger pressured the Bank of England into temporarily suspending its practice of honouring banknotes with gold. The Bank then issued £1 & £2 notes for the first time. Here Sheridan, Fox and Stanhope, dressed as French revolutionaries, try to persuade John Bull to refuse to accept them.”
James Gillray. London, H.G.Bohn, 1851. Etching, 260 x 360mm. Coloured. Trimmed from a larger sheet. First published 1797.
[Courtesy of Lee Jackson Maps]
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