Title: WRITING THE K____'S SPEECH
Materials: paper
Techniques: lithograph
Production person: Print made by John Doyle (HB)
Published by: Thomas McLean
Production place: London, England
Date: Feb 1830
Schools/Styles: British satire

[British Museum Satires 16013]

Description
No. 43. Wellington (left) and Peel (right) sit at opposite sides of a round library table, pen in hand, gloomily regarding blank sheets of paper. Peel: 'Oh! this Confounded Currency Question.' Wellington: 'Are you stuck fast too P—l I can't get farther than "My Lords & Gentlemen".' Between them, on the farther side of the table, Lyndhurst writes busily.
1 February 1830


Curator's comments
(Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', XI, 1954)
A gibe (?ante-dated) at a momentous King's Speech, not delivered till 4 Feb. In this there was an answer to the demands by Attwood, Cobbett, and others for depreciation of the currency: "Above all, H.M. is assured that no pressure of temporary difficulty [see No. 16032, &c] will induce you to relax the determination to maintain inviolate the public credit. . ." A violent attack on the Government followed. The cause of distress, it was maintained, was the "surreptitious enhancement of the currency". 'Parl. Deb.', N.s. xxii. 1 ff. ; Sir Herbert Taylor, 'Taylor Papers', 1913, pp. 313-15; Smart, 'Econ. Annals', ii. 1917, pp. 517 ff. See Add. MS. 27789, fo. 138 ff. for F. Place's narrative and comments. See also Nos. 15919, 15997, 16028, 16030, 16041, 16070, 16078, 16117, 16131, 16530 [2], 17259

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