Inscribed in pencil on verso with notes identifying the subjects of Gillray's caricature.
By James Gillray.
At right of title: NB. The representation of, the astonishing strength & Influence of the Rays from the Rising-Sun, is taken from Sir Isaac Newtons Theory of Light.
Print shows a pair of scales suspended from a vertical bar terminating in a ring which encircles one of many solid rays from a large sun surmounted by the Prince of Wales' coronet and feathers. The 'Rising-Sun' is partly obscured by dark clouds, but its rays extend across the design and illuminate especially Sidmouth and Ellenborough. The former is poised triumphantly on the cross-beam, depressing the right hand scale with his foot, while he holds on his shoulders Ellenborough in judge's wig and gown, who manipulates the scale in the same direction. This lower scale contains the 'Broad-Bottomites' i.e. the Grenvillites, or New Opposition, the other, the 'No-Bottomites', i.e. the Foxites, or Old Opposition. Pictured among the the latter are Fox, Erskine, Grey, and Moira. The other half of the scale contains Grenville, Lord Temple, and Windham. The scales are suspended above the curve of the globe on which Great Britain and the Continent are indicated. Behind the North Pole is a setting sun containing a royal crown; its feeble rays are outshone by the heavy beams of the rising sun (or son). Above it, among clouds, flies the ghost of Pitt, weeping.