The American rattle snake

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James Gillray
1756-1815
The American rattle snake
etching, hand colored
image: 222 x 323 mm; plate mark: 254 x 332 mm; sheet: 239 x 328 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 2392
Published: 
[London] : Pubd April 12th 1782, by W. Humphrey, No 227 Strand, [1782]
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Bibliography: 
Published in: The American Revolution in drawings and prints; a checklist of 1765-1790 graphics in the Library of Congress / Compiled by Donald H. Cresswell, with a foreword by Sinclair H. Hitchings. Washington : [For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off.], 1975, no. 812.<br>Published in: Eyes of the nation : A visual history of the United States / Vincent Virga, Curators of the Library of Congress, Alan Brinkley. New York : Knopf, 1997.
Notes: 

Attributed to Gillray.
Title from item.
Four lines of verse flanking caption title: "Britons within the Yankean Plains, / Mind how how ye March & Trench, / The Serpent in the Congress reigns, / As well as in the French."
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.

Summary: 

Cartoon shows an enormous snake, so coiled as to make three circles; from its mouth protrudes a forked fang and a label inscribed: "Two British Armies I have thus Burgoyn'd, And room for more I've got behind." Inside two of the circles are solid squares of British soldiers, while British flags lie on the ground. They represent the armies of Burgoyne and Cornwallis which had been forced to surrender. The last coil, nearest the tail, is empty; on the top of the tail which rears in the air a placard is hung, inscribed "An Apartment to lett for Military Gentlemen"; in the foreground are stones and foliage, the background is a mountainous landscape.

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