Lettered with title, artist's name, text within image and publication line "G. Cruik fect/ Pubd Jany 1813 by Walker & Knight Sweetings Alley Royal Exchange."
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.
Murat, on a miserably decrepit horse which stands (left) in profile to the left, looks over his shoulder, horrified at the remnants of the army, a row of nine ragged and emaciated scarecrows. All are grotesquely burlesqued. Murat is in better case than the 'Army', but his horse is a skin-covered skeleton; its hollow flank is inscribed 'Boney Part'. He wears a plumed bicorne like that of Napoleon and huge lack-boots with monstrous spurs. He says: "If I be not ashamed of my Soldiers I'll be D--d, by Gar they are truly Miserable! the very scum of the Earth: the Refuse of Mankind the Sweepings of Hospitals & Workhouses! Dunghill Cocks, not fit to Carry guts to a Bear!! Wretches with Hearts in their bellies no bigger then pin's heads Slaves as ragged as Lazarus--there isn't half an inch of Shirt amongst them all!! Zounds the Russians will think I have unloaded all the Gibbets, & prest the dead bodies. but--however the Crows & the Cossacks will soon put an end to them." The men are of different sizes, shapes, and arms, and recede in perspective from right to left. On the extreme right a man wearing a cocked hat and enormous spurred jack-boots holds a battered sabre. Next, a ragged drummer wearing bonnet rouge and sabots; then a tall grenadier with a musket. Then an elderly officer of civilian appearance, wearing spectacles, holds up a grotesque, decapitated eagle spatchcocked on its staff, with tricolour rags inscribed 'Leigeon of Honor'. The next man wears trousers and holds a musket, as does the one-eyed cripple next him. A cavalryman with a plumed helmet and sabre is almost naked. A knock-kneed grenadier has lost his right arm. The last man wears a bonnet rouge.