Consequences of a Successful French Invasion - Introduction

Title page of Consequences of the French Invasion

Title Page of Consequences of the French Invasion [1798]
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After the publication of the 20 plates of Hollandia Regenerata (1796) which satirized life in Holland under the new French regime, Gillray was approached by the Scottish lawyer and historian, Sir John Dalrymple, to create a similar set of 20 satiric prints to show the projected results of a French invasion of England.

As he explains in the pamphlet describing his plan, Dalrymple's goal was explicitly propagandistic, to use the combined powers of image and word in a set of satiric prints to teach British citizens "their Duty in Public Life by their Fears and their Dangers" and to "rouse all the People to an active Union against that Invasion."

Dalrymple's plan called for the creation of ten "Numbers" of two "Plates" each. These are described by Dalrymple in detail in the Pamphlet linked in my Sources and Reading below, but the titles (normalized for legibility) are listed here. Each plate is set in a different locale to suggest how every facet of British life—political, economic, judicial, social, religious, and military—would be transformed by the invasion. But there also seems to have been some effort to group Plates within Numbers. For instance, the two plates of Number 1 focus upon the British governmental class and the Houses of Parliament. The two plates of Number 3 focus upon country farmers—of both livestock and crops. And the two plates of Number 4 concern the military—first navy, then army.

Gillray did not work on the plates consecutively, but seemingly as the spirit moved him. So after completing both plates of Number 1, he skipped to Plates within Numbers 3 and 6, and had begun the research for Plate 2 of Number 2 (See Hill, p. 76) when the project collapsed.

Highlighted titles of the individual plates Gillray actually completed are linked to commentaries which discuss their details.

Both the Pamphlet and the plan seem to have been part of an idea that was still evolving so, needless to say, there was some confusion. As Dalrymple explains, the text of the Pamphlet "went as fast as dictated from my Writing table to the Press." So fast, in fact, that when he wanted to add further paragraphs to some of the original descriptions, he found that the Pamphlet had already gone to press. As a result, the new passages had to be added at the end of the Pamphlet, and the places marked "where they should have been inserted." Even then, there were further substantial additions to the descriptions of No. III. - Plate 2, and No. VI. - Plate 1 which must have been communicated to Gillray after the Pamphlet was officially circulated, because they appear on the produced plate but neither in the original plan nor among the appended additions.

And I can't help but wonder whether the odd pronoun "Me" appearing in titles such as "Me teach de English Republicans to work" and Me come to protect your Properties isn't, in fact, a printer's misreading of the "We" used in most of the other titles.

As Draper Hill explains in Chapter 7 of Mr. Gillray The Caricaturist, however, the confusion was not limited to production issues. There was similar confusion about funding. At one point in the Pamphlet, Dalrymple proudly announces that he himself is standing "Surety for the Expense of the Publication, which is no inconsiderable Sum, without any Benefit to myself." But a moment later, he explains that "a Subscription Paper will be [found] on the Table of the Print Shop, No. 27, St. James's Street, suggesting his belief that at least some part of the project would be funded by subscriptions. And we can infer from surviving correspondence that Dalrymple never really believed that he would need to stand surety for the effort, convinced as he was "that so public Spirited an undertaking would have been supported by Government." And, in fact, from the same set of correspondence we know that Gillray had already completed all four of the extant plates (at his own expense) before he received any payment whatsoever from Sir John.

But as if that were not enough, the final coup de grâce was struck when it became known that Sir John (ignorant of Gillray's pension from the government) was openly seeking funds for his project from members of the Tory administration, the very administration that was trying so hard to keep their relationship with Gillray a secret. Not surprisingly, the project ended there.

Like the plates in Hollandia Regenerata, the satire in the Consequences of the French Invasion was intended to be generalized rather than personal. In the Pamphlet describing the project, Dalrymple says:

I therefore gave the following Notions of executing the Particulars of such a Plan to Mr. Gilray, of St. James's Street, No. 27, but charged him not to introduce a single Caricature, or indulge a single Sally that could give Pain to a British Subject. I had little Occasion to repeat the Advice, for he is a Man of Genius ; and, like all such Men, is fair and humane.

In general, Gillray followed this directive. In only one of the four plates (the first) are portrait caricatures suggested. And even there, Gillray has coarsened and disguised the faces of Fox and Sheridan so that one could plausibly deny them as portraits. Again like the Hollandia plates, they are beautifully finished. Backgrounds, details, and settings are all carefully rendered. Gillray has managed to etch the prints so that they look wonderful in red or black ink like more traditional fine art prints, but also in color like most caricature prints. In a draft letter to Dalrymple, Gillray admitted being drawn to the project "for ye sake of ye credit which I hoped it might gain me as an Artist." And, even though the larger project collapsed, this new approach to the creation of his satiric prints seems to have given birth to other equally finished prints whose satire is not personalized such as United Irishmen in Training and United Irishmen upon Duty published just a few months later.

Sources and Reading

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