By James Gillray.
Below caption title: "Every Man has his Price"--- Sir Rt Walpole; and: "Sic itur ad astra".
Print shows the cattle-pens of Smithfield Market filled with cattle with the faces of peers and draped with ermine-trimmed robes. Thurlow, dressed as a farmer, the owner of the cattle, stands on guard with his back to the pens. He clutches a full purse in his right hand and looks fiercely at a smaller number of cattle who are being driven from the left towards the pens. One of these, with the head of Lord Derby, stands on his hind legs, saying, "I move an adjournment till after the next Newmarket Meeting". The cattle in the pens (right) have the heads of peers who were believed favourable to Hastings. In the front row are Lord Sydney, the Duke of Grafton, and Lord Bathurst. An ox with the head of Lord Lansdowne, his horns tipped to prevent mischief, stands (right) outside the pen which he tries to enter. Others cannot be identified. The Opposition peers include the Duke of Portland, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Carlisle, and Lord Stormont. They are being driven by a fierce-looking drover (left); a dog wearing a peer's robe, his collar inscribed 'Mountford', barks at them. On the extreme left Hastings, dressed as a butcher but wearing a turban, riding a miserable horse (the horse of Hanover), carries off a calf with the profile of George III, its forelegs tied together. Undifferentiated ministerial cattle at the back of the pens push with their horns at a watchman's box which they are overturning. Three men dressed as watchmen, seated on the roof (which they have climbed to escape the cattle), drop staff, lantern, and rattle and are about to fall off; they are Fox, Burke, and Sheridan. In the background is a house at the corner of 'Smithfield' and 'Cow Lane'; in the balcony sit Dundas and Pitt. They are smoking and have foaming tankards marked with a crown; Dundas is in Highland dress, Pitt is dressed as an English farmer or drover.