Drawing for twelfth-cake at St Annes Hill.!! (BM 1868,0808.6814)

Fox, as host, stands behind a table on which is a large Twelfth-cake decorated with trees of Liberty and crowned by a bonnet-rouge. He and all his guests are inspecting the tickets they have drawn from a bonnet-rouge full of papers which lies on the corner of the table opposite Sheridan (right). Fox delightedly holds out his ticket, 'Perpetual Dictator'. The others (left to right) are: first 'Tierney', his ticket 'A Nabob'; then Lord Moira, stiffly in profile to the left, 'The Irish Hoaxter' (cf. BMSat 9184); the Duke of Bedford, seated, 'Collector of Taxes' (see BMSat 9167), Norfolk, on Fox's right, 'Perpetual Toast Master' (see BMSat 9168, &c.); M. A. Taylor, very small and wearing a bonnet-rouge, his ticket inscribed 'Go to Roost' (he was 'the Chick of Law', see BMSat 6777); Erskine, on Fox's right, Soliciter General (cf. BMSat 8502), Burdett, 'Keeper of the Prison in Cold Bath Fields' (see BMSat 9341), Sheridan (the impecunious), seated, 'First Lord of the Treasury', and (?)Byng, [Perhaps Grey.] M.P. for Middlesex, looking nearsightedly at 'Bastile Jervise'. On the wall is a placard: 'Rules to be observed at this Meeting 1 That the Cake be decorate with appropriate insignia 2 That the tickets be deposited in a Bonnet Rouge and drawn in Rotation 3 That the Old Fashioned Game of King and Queen be exploded & Catch as Catch can Substituted in its stead.' 16 January 1799
Hand-coloured etching