The print depicts an infamous incident described during William Wilberforce's motion for the abolition of the slave trade in 1791.
Below caption title: Mr "Frances [sic] relates "Among numberless other acts of cruelty daily practised, "an English Negro Driver, because a young Negro thro sickness was unable to "work, threw him into a copper of Boiling-Sugar-juice, & after keeping him, "steeped over head & Ears for above Three Quarters of an hour in the boiling "liquid, whipt him with such severity, that it was near Six Months before he "recover'd of his Wounds & Scalding"------Vide Mr Frances Speech, corroborated by Mr Fox, Mr Wilberforce &c &c.
Print shows a Black man held under the surface of a boiling vat of sugar water with the handle of a scourge by a brutal overseer. The overseer stands on a ladder, saying, "B-t your black Eyes! what you can't work because you're not well? - but I'll give you a warm bath, to cure your Ague, & a Curry-combing afterwards to put Spunk into you." On the wall above his head are nailed up, in a row, a bird, a fox, and ferrets, accompanied by a severed human arm and two ears. Cf. George.