Preparing for the grand attack, or, A private rehearsal of "The ci-devant ministry in danger" / J. Gillray, inv. & fect.

Print shows Burdett declaiming a speech from a gigantic scroll held out to him by Fox. The other end is held by Sheridan who stands behind a writing-table over which the scroll passes, while Horne Tooke, seated full face behind the table, writes on the scroll. Burdett stands with legs astride on a large tattered volume: 'List of them London Corresponding Society'. He says: "There! - there! - see the causes of all our Woe! - Oh! my ruin'd Country! - Enslav'd! - ah Traitors! - Expiring Liberty! - precious, Aristocratic Villains! - Oh Unaccounted Millions! - murder'd Myriads! oh, Gallows! - Block! - Guillotine! - Caira! Caira!" Sheridan, the theatrical expert, leans forward delightedly to say: "Bravo! - Bravo! - but it should give more Emphasis to the beginning of the last Line of Exclamation." Fox, very corpulent and gouty, his gloomy face shaded by the scroll, says: "Bravissimo! - Encore the Unaccounted Millions! - Encore!" The scroll is inscribed: 'Ministerial Crimes & Misdemeanours. - Ist Espousing the Cause of Loyalty & Old England. - 2d Making War against the Enemies of Loyalty and Old England. - 3d Destroying the Navy of the Enemies of Loyalty & Old England - 4th Capturing Malta, & all the foreign Possessions of the Enemies of loyalty and Old England. - 5th Ruining the Commerce of the Enemies...[etc., etc.]. Under the scroll lie other papers: 'Last dying Speech . . . Aristocratic Ministry' and 'Scheme of Ministerial Equality.' Against the wall and forming a background to Sheridan, Horne Tooke, and Fox is a book-case with volumes titled: 'Thel[wall]', 'Revoluti[on]', 'Cromw[ell]', 'Machiavel'. On the top three busts partly decapitated by the upper margin: 'Tom Paine, Abbé Seyeis', and 'Rob'spear'. On a small cabinet behind Burdett stands a model of a guillotine. Tooke wears a bonnet rouge with tricolour cockade, a dressing-gown with (torn) clerical bands