The coming on of the monsoons, or, The retreat from Seringapatam

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James Gillray
1756-1815
The coming on of the monsoons, or, The retreat from Seringapatam
etching
image: 217 x 270 mm; plate: 224 x 275 mm; sheet: 232 x 286 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 2754
Published: 
[London] : Pubd. Decr. 6th 1791, by H. Humphrey, No. 18 Old Bond Street, [1791]
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Notes: 

By James Gillray.
Below caption title: '"Whats the matter Falstaff"--"Whats the matter! here be Four of "us, have taken a City this morning - where is it? - where is it? where is it? "taken from us it is; a hundred Thousand, upon poor Four of us, I am a "rogue, if I was not at half-sword with a Thousand of them for two hours "together, I have escaped by miracle, I am eight times thrust through the "doublet, four through the hose, my buckler cut through & through, my Sword "hack'd like a hand-saw, I never dealt better since I was a man: all would "not do!'"

Summary: 

Printed shows Cornwallis, wearing his Garter star, mounted on an ass, fleeing in terror from a fortess from behind the battlements of which stands the Tipu Sultan. The Sultan is holding a sabre and urinating a devastating stream upon the fleeing British soldiers. Two cannon belch fire and smoke from loopholes and dead soldiers litter the ground.

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