John Bull and the sinking-fund : a pretty scheme for reducing the taxes & paying-off the national debt! / Js. Gillray, invt. & fect.

Print shows John Bull on his hands and knees on a rock labelled: 'Rock of Broad-Bottom'd Security'. On his back is an enormous money-bag: 'The Sinking-Fund - i.e - Taxations of 42 Millions pr Annum'. Petty stands astride the bag, shovelling a cascade of coins to greedy ministerialists who stand below, outside the stone gateway of the 'Treasury', whose wall is on the left John, a yokel, out-at-elbows, looks up to say mournfully: " - Toss away! Toss away! my good Boy! toss away!!! - oh how kind it is, to ease me of this Terrible Load!" Petty, looking down, answers: "Patience, Johnny! - ar'nt I tossing-away as fast as I can? ar'nt I reducing of your Taxes to sh/17 & 6d in the Pound? - why you ought to think yourself quite comfortable & Easy, Johnny!" Recognizable in the crowd are Windham, Lord Temple, Grenville, the Marquis of Buckingham, Howick, Sidmouth, Ellenborough, Sheridan (attired as Harlequin), Lauderdale, Moira, the Duke of Clarence (holding up a chamber-pot, inscribed 'Royal Jordan'), the Duke of York, Erskine, Spencer, and Norfolk. On the right are members of the Pittite opposition, assembled in front of a high massive pedestal inscribed 'Sacred to the Memory of departed Greatness', with the lower part of a shattered column faintly lettered 'W Pit[t]'. Among them are Castlereagh, saying, "My Sinking Plan would have cleared it off in half the Time!!!!"; Canning, saying, "O! the Petty Cheat! that Sinking-Fund was our invention! - & not to If a Snack of it at last! Oh! Oh! O!"; and Perceval, who tugs at his barrister's wig, saying, "Not a single Fee! - not one Shovel for us! - O! - O! - O!!!"