The genius of France triumphant, -or- Britannia petitioning for peace. -Vide, The Proposals of Opposition, James Gillray, 1795

Britannia (left) grovels before a monster (right) representing the french republic. Behind her stand fox, sheridan, and stanhope, as sansculottes, joyfully hailing the apparition. Britannia on her knees, and bending forward, holds out her arms in a gesture of abject submission, pointing to her shield and spear, the crown and sceptre, and 'magna charta' which lie on the ground before her. She is on the edge of a cliff. The monster is supported on dark clouds; he is a man seated with arms and legs akimbo, one jack-boot is planted on the sun, a face in its disk looking from the corners of the eyes at britannia with a dismayed expression; the other is on a crescent enclosing the old moon. His seat is the point of a huge bomb-shaped cap of 'li-ber-tas'. His head is a black cloud on which grotesquely fierce features are indicated. Above his head rises a guillotine emitting rays of light. His dress is that of a ragged sansculotte with a dagger thrust in his belt. The british sansculottes are also bare-legged and wear belts in which a dagger is thrust; but they have nothing of the fierce arrogance of france. Fox, his stockings ungartered, and sheridan, shambling forward with propitiatory gestures, remove their bonnets-rouges. Fox holds out two large keys labelled 'keys of the bank of england'; sheridan proffers a document: 'we promise the surrender of the navy of great brita[in] - of corsica [see bmsat 8516] - of the east & west indias [see bmsat 8599] - & to abolish the worship of a god' [cf. Bmsat 8350]. Stanhope, less deprecating, stands behind the others, waving his bonnet-rouge and a rolled document inscribed 'destruction of parliament'. Beneath the title: 'to the patriotic advocates for peace, this seemly sight is dedicated'. 2 february 1795 hand-coloured etching and aquatint. Date: 1795. Dimensions: Height: 250 mm; Width: 350 mm. Medium: paper. Depicted People: Charles James Fox. Collection: British Museum. The genius of France triumphant, -or- Britannia petitioning for peace. -Vide, The Proposals of Opposition (BM 1851,0901.718)