File:The Bostonians in distress (BM 1877,1013.854 1).jpg

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The Bostonians in distress   (Wikidata search (Cirrus search) Wikidata query (SPARQL)  Create new Wikidata item based on this file)
Title
The Bostonians in distress
Description
English: A cage inscribed "Boston" hangs from a branch of "Libert[y] Tree". In it are ten hungry Bostonians being fed with fish by three men standing in a boat, at the side of the peninsula on which the tree stands. The men in the cage are lean with lank hair and of puritanic appearance. Those in the front who have secured fish are thrusting them into their mouths, others with wide open mouths and clasped hands beg to be fed. They crouch forward to take the fish which are thrust between the bars in open boxes at the end of poles. One of the Bostonians stands in the centre with uplifted right hand, holding ou in his left hand a paper inscribed: "They cried unto the Lord in their Trouble & he saved them out of their Distress Psal[m] cvii. 13". He wears a minister's bands, and his expression and open-wide mouth shows that he is making a loud lamentation. On the left a man who is eating a fish held on the end a pole has thrust his hand through the bars, holding a large bundle of neatly folded documents inscribed "Promises". On the right. two men are fighting for a fish, one holds it tight, the other has seized him by the hair and tries to take it from him.


In the open boat at the foot of the tree are two baskets of fish on one of which is a paper inscribed "To------from the Committee of------". Of the three men who stand in the boat holding out the fish, one (left) wears a round hat, jacket, and striped sailor's trousers, another (centre) wears a round hat, apron, and striped jacket; the third wears a broad hat, dark coat, and loose breeches.
In the distance, behind the tree, on the sea-shore are British soldiers; a file of men with muskets over their shoulders drive off a flock of goats, the regimental band (three drums and two fifes) is playing. Cannons pointed at 'Liberty Tree' are in a semicircle on the right. On the sea are four British men-of-war. 19 November 1774


Mezzotint
Date 1774
date QS:P571,+1774-00-00T00:00:00Z/9
Medium paper
Dimensions
Height: 354 millimetres
Width: 253 millimetres
institution QS:P195,Q6373
Current location
Prints and Drawings
Accession number
1877,1013.854
Notes

(Description and comment from M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', V, 1935) One of a series, see pp. 169, 196-7, BMSat 5284. When the Port of Boston was closed (see BMSat 5230, &c.) many were in distress owing to lack of employment and the expense of conveying merchandise by land from Salem. Gifts of food, &c, were sent from all places on the continent, including a contribution of "two hundred and seven quintals of codfish" from Marblehead, noted in the English press. In the summer of 1774 Gage ordered some regiments of foot with artillery to be sent to Boston; they were encamped on the ground between the town and the narrow neck of ground, then called Boston Neck, connecting it with the mainland, and a guard was placed there to prevent desertion. This was magnified into an attempt to cut the communication between Boston and its hinterland and to reduce the town by famine. Stedman, 'History of the American War', 1794, i. 98. 'Liberty Tree', a rallying point for patriots, was cut down for fuel while the British were blockaded in Boston in the winter of 1775-6. Knowledge of America is shown by the depiction of the Bostonians as undergoing the punishment given in the Colonies to slaves convicted of capital offences who were thus imprisoned and left to starve to death. The artist's irony seems directed against both sides, the English soldiers who direct their cannon at 'Liberty Tree', while the cage, symbol of slavery and barbarity, hangs on Liberty Tree. Reproduced R. T. Halsey, 'The Boston Port Bill', p. 172.

(Supplementary information)

It has been attributed to P.Dawe.
Source/Photographer https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1877-1013-854
Permission
(Reusing this file)		 © The Trustees of the British Museum, released as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
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