James Gillray

John Bull Bother'd _ or _ The Geese alarming the Capitol.

15 x 12

This wonderfully evocative caricature sums up the abject fear spreading across England towards the end of 1792. As revolutionary events across the Channel unfolded at an alarming rate, William Pitt (Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1783 until 1801) stands upon a fortified battlement, presumably looking out across the English Channel towards France. Through his spy glass he sees a flock of geese heading towards the English coast and describes them to the clearly terrified and hapless John Bull as " Ten thousand sans-culottes now on their passage...what will become of us John?...we're all ruined! They'll murder us all"

John Bull, clearly hedging his bets and unsure which way the political wind is blowing, sports two contrasting favours affixed to his mop cap ("God Save the King" and "Viva la Liberte") and replies to Pitt with "You frighten a poor honest simple fellow out of his wits".

What is clear in this scene is that everyone is terrified of invasion from France. In Paris the mob had invaded the Tuileries, overthrown the monarchy and imprisoned the royal family. Barely a month after this print was issued, in January 1793, the French king, Louis XVI, would be brutally executed at the guillotine.