Pitt stands, in profile to the right, on a fortified tower, or platform, in the crenellations of which are cannon; he looks through a spy-glass, his knees bending with fear, and clutches by the arm a stout john bull (left), a yokel (as in bmsat 7889), who stands full face, almost equally terrified. He is watching a flight of geese advancing from the right, and says, "there, john! - there! there they are! - i see them - get your arms ready, john! - they're rising & coming upon us from all parts; - there! - theres ten thousand sans-culottes now on their passage! - & there! look on the other side, the scotch have caught the itch too; and the wild-irish have begun to pull off their breeches! - what will become of us john? - & see, there's five hundred disputing-clubs, with bloody mouths; - & twenty thousand bill-stickers with ca ira pasted on the front of their red-caps ! - where's the lord mayor john ? - are the lions safe ? - down with the book-stalls! - blow up the gin-shops! - cut off the printers ears! - o lord john! - o lord! - we're all ruined! - they'l murder us, and make us into aristocrat pyes!" john bull answers: "aristocrat pyes ? - lord defend us! - wounds, measter, you frighten a poor honest simple fellow out of his wits! - gin-shops & printers-ears! - & bloody-clubs & lord mayors! - and wild-irishmen without breeches, & sans-culottes! lord have mercy upon our wives & daughters! - and yet, i'll be shot, if i can see any thing myself, but a few geese, gabbling together - but lord help my silly head, how should, such a clod-pole as i, be able to see any thing right ? - i dont know what occasion for i to see at all, for that matter; - why measter does all that for i, - my business is only to fire when & where measter orders, & to pay for the gunpowder; - but measter o' mine, (if i may speak a word,) where's the use of firing now? - what can us two do against all them hundreds of thousands of millions of monsters ? - lord, measter, had not we better try if they won't shake hands with us, & be friends ? - for if we should go to fighting with them, & they should lather us, what will become of you & i, then, measter!!!"
john bull, frightened and bemused, holds a musket with a broken bayonet, his left hand is in his coat-pocket, and he wears very wrinkled gaiters. In his hat are two favours, one 'vive la liberte', the other 'god save the king'. A pamphlet projects from each waistcoat-pocket: one, paine's 'rights of man' (see bmsat 7867, &c), the other 'pennyworth of truth'. This is the pamphlet 'one pennyworth of truth, from thomas bull to his brother john' denounced by grey (17 dec. ) as a libel. 'parl. Hist. ' xxx. 138 ff. It attacked price and priestley and was by the rev. William jones. 'hist. Mss. Comm. , kenyon mss. ', p. 536. Pitt's hair rises on his head, and his face is blotched with drink. After the title is etched:
'"thus on the rock, heroic manlius stood,
"spy'd out the geese, & prov'd rome's guardian god. ' 19 december 1792
hand-coloured etching and aquatint. Date: 1792. Dimensions: Height: 312 mm; Width: 393 mm. Medium: paper. Depicted People: William Pitt the Younger. Collection: British Museum. John Bull bother'd-or-the geese alarming the Capitol. (BM 1868,0808.6249)
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