Dundas (left) reads from a folio history of scotland, while pitt (right) joins the reluctant hands of paddy (left) and john bull (right). Dundas, who wears a scots cap, plaid, and tartan stockings, with a flask protruding from his coat pocket, stands in profile to the right, saying, "i'll read ye a little aboot the same business in my ain country - you will find how many made the siller frae that time to this - depend upon it paddy ye will be much happier - and mair independent than ever. " paddy, an irish farmer, looks round at him with a suspicious scowl, saying, "now is it blareying you are at?" pitt says with a primly complacent expression: "depend upon it - what that gentleman says is right - thus i join your hands in friendship. & one interest - and whom i put together - let no man put asunder". John bull stares to the right, saying, "this may be nation good fun. - but dang my buttons, if i know what it is about! & cousin paddy dont seem quite clear in the case neither. " on the extreme left stands a man with blankets over his arm inscribed 'tax on income'. He says: "when you want the wet blankets - i have them ready". He is perhaps joseph smith, (treasury) private secretary to pitt. Below the title: '"if there be no great love in the beginning. - "yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquantance, vide shakespeare'. 1799
etching. Date: 1799. Dimensions: Height: 255 mm; Width: 353 mm. Medium: paper. Depicted People: Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville. Collection: British Museum. An Irish Union! (BM 1868,0808.6816)
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