‘John Bull offering Little Boney fair play’ is the title of one of Gillray’s pictures (August 2, 1803), and depicts the fortified coasts on both sides of the Channel, with John Bull, as a Jack Tar, stripped to the waist for action. He wades half across to hurl defiance at his foe. ‘You’re a coming? You be d--d! If you mean to invade us, why make such a rout? I say little Boney, why don’t you come out? yes, d--n ye, why don’t ye come out?’ Meanwhile Boney, secure in his fortress, and with his flotilla safe on shore, looks over the parapet, and says, ‘I’m a coming! I’m a coming!!!’ [Illustration] His epitaph was even obligingly written for him during his lifetime, and here it is:-- EPITAPH _Underneath a_ GIBBET, _over a_ DUNGHILL _near_ HASTINGS, _close by the_ SEA BEACH. Underneath this Dunghill Is all that remains of a mighty Conqueror, NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. Who, with inflexible Cruelty of Heart, And unexampled depravity of Mind, Was permitted to scourge the Earth, for a Time, With all the Horrors of War: Too ignorant, and incapable, to do good to Mankind, The whole Force of his Mind was employed In oppressing the Weak, and plundering the Industrious: He was equally detested by all; His enemies he butchered in cold Blood; And fearing to leave incomplete the Catalogue of his Crimes, His friends he rewarded with a poison’d Chalice. He was an Epitome Of all that was vicious in the worst of Tyrants; He possess’d their Cruelty, without their Talents; Their Madness, without their Genius; The Baseness of one, and the Imbecility of another. Providence, at last, Wearied out with his Crimes, Returned him to the Dunghill from which he sprung; After having held him forth On the neighbouring Gibbet, As a Scare-crow to the Invaders of the British Coast. This Beach, The only Spot in our Isle polluted by his footsteps; This Dunghill All that remains to him of his boasted Conquest. Briton! Ere you pass by Kneel and thank thy God, For all the Blessings of thy glorious Constitution; Then return unto the peaceful Bosom of thy Family, and continue In the Practice of those Virtues, By which thy Ancestors Merited the Favor of the Almighty. I. Cruikshank, in ‘Johnny Bull giving Boney a Pull’ (August 7, 1803), brought out a caricature in which is graphically depicted the total annihilation of the French flotilla, and John Bull is dragging Napoleon, by a cord round his neck, to a gallows, surrounded by people waving their hats in token of joy. Napoleon, not unnaturally, hangs back, remarking, ‘Ah! Misericordi! Ah! Misericordi! Jean Bool, Jean Bool, hanging not good for Frenchmen.’ But John pulls along manfully, exclaiming, ‘I shant _measure the Cord_, you F----. I am sure it is long enough for a dozen such Fellows as you.’