Printmaker from British Museum online catalog.
Title from item.
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.
A complicated design showing the forces for and against Hastings, ranged on opposite sides of the House of Commons. The figures have numbers referring to a key etched beneath the design. Hastings, as an oriental colossus, stands on the table, the Speaker's head being visible between his legs. He wears a jewelled turban, and is naked except for a scarf and sash inscribed 'Colossean Nabob', in which is thrust an axe, inscribed 'A Nabob's Heart', whose head lies against his body where the heart should be. Looking to the left, where the Ministerialists are seated, he scatters and disgorges jewels which members grasp at or catch in their mouths. Another cascade of jewels issues from the point of a spear with which Pitt stabs his side; this stream falls into Pitt's lap. From the Speaker's mouth issue the words "To be, or not to be, Impeachment is the question". The members on the left say "No", those on the right say "Ay". In the foreground the two chief combatants, Major Scott and Sheridan, are fighting. Burke stands on the extreme right, beating a drum inscribed 'Impeachment' and 'For the Honor of the Nation'; beside him is the standard of the 'British Battalion'. He, and all the members of the British Battalion (or Opposition), wear armour with plumed helmets. On the extreme left stands Dundas in Highland dress playing bagpipes, the bag of which is full of coins. Cf. British Museum online catalog.