Print after Viscount Townshend?; cf. George.
"Underneath the plate are printed the verses to 'The Chase', in letterpress text."--Curator's comment, British Museum online catalog.
"Much importance was ascribed to this print by the 'Morning Herald', Bate's newspaper ... On 28 March the paper attributed the print to 'a noble lord ...' [Viscount Townshend]. On 30 March it called for the withdrawal of satirical prints, especially the 'Royal Hunt', a "well-timed but most insolent exhibition", since "His Majesty has at length returned to the voice of his people". On 1 Apr. it records the publication of a "new descriptive song" of eight stanzas, given with the print "with which the people seem much captivated". This song appears to be the one printed beneath the plate, showing that it is a reissue at some date probably after 1 Apr. News of the loss of Minorca did not reach London till March. The verses ("The Chase. To the tune of The Dusky Night") are put into the mouth of George III, who expresses his disregard of national disaster, provided he can still go "a hunting". One verse, to which is added a note "This song was written before the change of the Ministry".--Curator's comment, British Museum online catalog.
Library's copy closely trimmed within plate mark.
Print shows Lord Sandwich playing a fiddle, sitting between two courtesans, to the left, Lord North yawns while sitting on a sack, behind them are Rigby, Amherst, and Germain. To the right of this party is standing William Pitt (the younger), Charles James Fox, Edmund Burke, and Lord Richmond; they are critical of the debauchery of Sandwich and the others while the temple of Fame, representing the British empire, is being destroyed by France, America, Holland, and Spain, represented by four men who are pulling down the pillars which support it. A distraught Britannia is sitting on her shield in the right foreground. Meanwhile, George III is off hunting for stag, and in the background are several ships, some under sail. Individual figures in the print are numbered and identified in the margin below.