With the words "Plate II" following caption title.
Dedication below image: To His Excellency Sr. Charles Hanbury Williams Embassador to the Court of Russia. This Plate is most humbly Inscrib'd By his most Obedient humble Servant. Willm. Hogarth.
The second state of this plate, with the teeth removed from the figure of the lion at right. Cf. BM catalog entry.
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.
A rural scene with three inns: "The Portobello" (celebrating the naval victory of 1739 in contrast with the recent loss of Minorca), outside which two veterans sit reminiscing; "The Excise Office" (the Whig stronghold, its name alluding to Walpole's Excise Bill of 1733) with the sign of the Crown and a rioting crowd; and "The Royal Oak" (recalling Tory support for the Stuart monarchy), its sign partly obscured by the banner of "Punch Candidate for Guzzledown" in which the Treasury is being emptied of money that the candidate throws at voters; in the centre, a young country gentleman is being bribed by agents of both parties, while, to right, a portly candidate buys trinkets from a Jewish pedlar for two young ladies on the balcony of "The Royal Oak"; the landlady counts her bribe under the watchful eye of a soldier while she leans against a carved British lion about to devour the fleur-de-lis of France.