Frontispiece to 1768. (no title)

Date1768

MediumBlack and white line engraving

DimensionsOH: 8 1/4" x OW: 4 7/8"; Plate H: 7 1/4" x W: 4 1/2"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1960-135

DescriptionThe upper margin reads: "Frontispiece to 1768/ Vol. XXXVI

The lower margin reads: "Avaunt ye troublers of a World's repose./ No more your base destructive schemes disclose:/ For GEORGE shall ye support the fainting Fair,/ Restore her Peace, & shied her from Despair."

The scene is a terrace overlooking the water. Columns of a building can be seen, and a ship's sails are in the background. Pictured is the weeping figure of Liberty, her feet resting on maps of Corsica and North America, both areas where struggles for freedom were taking place. George III and Britannia stand beside her, while a youth representing Corsica kneels before her in a gesture of supplication. Corsica has laid a large musket and small pistol and powder horn on the ground. The sails of the ship in the background suggest the problems in trade that England was experiencing because of its foreign policies.
The preface to the magazine explains it thus: "The brave Corsicans... may yet disappoint the schemes to inslave them. As to the American, their grievances are before an assembly, which has... proved auspicious to the cause of liberty... our gracious sovereign,... will not long suffer arbitrary cruelty and unconstitutional oppression: To him Liberty cannot with impropriety appeal, nor the jaded American and the harrassed Corisan bend lowly for support."
ProvenanceEx coll: H. Dunscombe Colt. Other known copies: New York Public Library collection; New York Historical Society (2); any place that has the collection of the magazine.