The Rights of Man; -or- Tommy Paine, the little American taylor, taking the measure of the crown, for a new pair of Revolution-breeches, James Gillray, 1791

Tom paine, lean, and grotesquely caricatured, crouches, kneeling on one knee, to apply his tape-measure to a gigantic crown standing on the ground, the greater part of which is cut off by the right margin of the design. He is dressed as a ragged tailor, a large pair of shears attached to his waist, but wears a cocked hat of french fashion with a cockade inscribed 'vive la liberty'; his hair is in a long scraggy queue. He says, gaping with dismay at the crown, '"fathom and a half! fathom & a half! poor tom!" ah! mercy upon me! thats more by half than my poor measure will ever be able to reach! - lord! lord! i wish i had a bit of the stay-tape or buckram which i youst to cabbage" [pilfer, cf. Bmsat 8035, &c] when i was prentice, to lengthen it out; - well, well, who could ever have thought it, that i, who have served seven years as an apprentice, & afterwards worked four years as a journeyman to a master taylor, then followd the business of an exciseman as much longer, should not be able to take the dimensions of this bauble?" for what is a crown but a bauble? which we may see in the tower for six-pence a piece? - well, altho' it may be too large for a taylor to take measure of, there's one comfort, he may make mouths at it, & call it as many names as he pleases! - and yet, lord, lord, i should like to make it a yankee doodle night-cap & breeches, if it was not so dam'nd large, or i had stuff enough ah if i could once do that, i would soon stitch up the mouth of that barnacled edmund from making of any more reflections upon the flints - & so flints & liberty for ever & damn the dungs'. Four additional words have been left almost illegible but appear to be 'down with hanover horse. ' above the design is etched: 'humbly dedicated to the jacobine clubs of france and england!!! by common sense 'these are your gods, o, israel!"' 23 may 1791 hand-coloured etching. Date: 1791. Dimensions: Height: 356 mm; Width: 252 mm. Medium: paper. Depicted People: Edmund Burke. Collection: British Museum. The Rights of Man; -or- Tommy Paine, the little American taylor, taking the measure of the crown, for a new pair of Revolution-breeches (BM 1868,0808.6057)