coast, saying, 'You
have in that respect a great advantage over France, which is surrounded
by rocks and dangers.' On opening Torbay, he was much struck with the
beauty of the scenery, and exclaimed, 'What a beautiful country! It
very, very much resembles the bay of Porto Ferrago, in Elba.'"[72]

The same year, and on the same subject, the artist gives us _Boney's
Meditations on the Island of St. Helena, or the Devil addressing the
Sun_, in which the idea is manifestly borrowed from a design by James
Gillray; _The Corsican's Last Trip under the Guidance of his Good Angel_
[the devil]; _The Genius of France Expounding her Laws to the Sublime
People_; and a very admirable and original design, _The Pedigree of
Corporal Violet_; all of which are etched from the designs of other
artists.

Hardly was Napoleon despatched to the island prison which was so shortly
to prove his grave, and replaced by the unwieldly Louis, than the latter
came in for his full share of satire. In another of George Cruikshank's
caricatures of the same year, he shows us _The Royal Laundress_ [Louis
the Eighteenth] _Washing Boney's Court Dresses_, Napoleon watching the
process the while from St. Helena. "Ha, ha!" he laughs, "such an old
woman as _you_ might rub a long while before they'll be all white, for
they are tri-coloured in _grain_." Another shows us fat Louis climbing
the _mat de cocagne_ (soaped pole) and clutching the crown of France; he
clambers up on the shoulders of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, his
immediate supporter being England. Napoleon watches his progress from
across the sea; "_I_ climbed up," he says, "twice, without _any_ help."
Other subjects of the year are: _Friends in Need_, and _John's Dream, or
the Prince and Old England for Ever!_

1816. AVERSION OF THE REGENT TO RETRENCHMENT.

The repugnance of the Regent to the economical measures which were
forced upon the ministry in 1816 is well-known. The people complained
with every just reason of the pressure of taxes, which were levied, as
they said, upon the industrious, to be squandered in extravagant
salaries, sinecures, and unmerited pensions. They complained of the
large standing army, which the Regent insisted to be necessary for the
maintenance of "our position and high character among the European
powers." The prince's aversion to the popular cry for retrenchment and
reform is shown by one of George's caricatures entitled, _Sick of the
Property Tax, or Ministerial