‘Ministerial Phlebotomy or Bleeding John Bull’, c1808

Description

Mounted hand coloured etching, entitled ‘Ministerial Phlebotomy or Bleeding John Bull’, designed by William Heath, etched by anon and published by Samuel William Fores in 1808.

This caricature depicts a full-length figure of John Bull, stripped to his breeches, his clothes, wig and a club “OAK” heaped on the floorboards, flails his arms in vexed irritation. His body and head are covered in more than seventeen human-headed leeches, (possibly representing government ministers).

Beneath his upraised right leg, four dying leeches marked: “Defaulter 300-300” lie by a scroll of: “NEW TAXES”. John Bull says: “This is Bleeding with A Veangence. If I do not Shake off Some of these Leaches I shall not have a drop of Blood Left, why they will never be full and this is the third set I have had on in this three years or so enough to destroy the best Constitution.”

George III looks in from the left margin, and regards the scene through his spyglass, saying: “Hard Work indeed for poor Johnny. How Voraicous I beg