File:The European Race Heat 1st Anno Dom MDCCXXXVII (BM 1868,0808.3589).jpg

English: Satire on the jockeying for position of the European powers in the late 1730s, and in particular on the unwillingness of Walpole's government to go to war. A race-course on the sea-shore with a variety of animals and riders representing different countries: first comes a fox ridden by Cardinal Fleury (France) leading a wolf ridden by a Spaniard in 16th-century costume and a bear (Russia) ridden by a man with a scimitar and a flag bearing crescent moons (trophies won in recent wars with Turkey). Fleury has attempted to noose an elephant ridden by a Turk, but the animal has dropped the noose and stands immobile looking through a pair of spectacles (said to be English, i.e., his view is enhanced by warnings given by Sir Everard Fawkener, the British Ambassador to Constantinople) which allows him a clear view of the French fleur-de-lis grafted on to his trunk. Next comes a Dutchman, smoking a pipe, mounted on a boar which looks back towards the King and Queen of the Two Sicilies riding in a chariot. Beside the chariot horse is a distance post to which clings a monkey holding a flag and the fleur-de-lis. The chariot wheel is obstructed by an English herald who releases a lion ("Whelp'd in ye Tower of London") which an English soldier is trying awkwardly to mount, impeded by his lack of experience of warfare. The race approaches a grandstand from which hangs the prize, a crown, and in which are seated the umpires: Europe (seated beside a large flag holding a lance), Asia, Africa and America, the last three paying little attention to proceedings; at the foot of the stand a bulldog of "True English Breed" is tied up. Nearer the foreground, to left, are two riders said to be the Young Pretender (already seen as potentially a greater threat than his father) and the Marquis de la Quadra (Stephens considers that the latter is intended for Robert Walpole) who offers a paper lettered, "Gibraltar, Portmahon, Georgia" while the other man declares, "4 to 1 upon Fox" (i.e, France). Towards the right, a horse has stumbled against the coat-of-arms of France and thrown its rider, Theodore of Corsica, whose sword, crown and standard have fallen to the ground; a jockey rides up on an eagle (the Austrian Empire), proceeding off-course hampered by having clipped wings and by the weight of a heavy orb it carries (its unsuccessful armies). In the foreground, a Savoyard showman has placed his box on a stone lettered, "Here ends St. James's Parish" and opened the doors to reveal the image of "Mermot" (a woman said to have been sent by Fleury to seduce George II, possibly identifiable as Amalie von Wallmoden); the Savoyard carries a baby (the Young Pretender) in a box slung over his shoulder; beside him an English dog and a Spanish dog fight while a French dog steals their bone. In the background, on the left, is the English fleet above which a devil dangles a huge gold coin; in the centre, the dome and a tower of St Paul's emerge from clouds, birds of ill omen perched on their tops; Neptune rises from the sea below; on the right, is the Spanish fleet with two suns (the sons of the Old Pretender) shining above, the rock of Gibraltar from which a mouse emerges in allusion to Aesop's fable warning not to make much ado about nothing; at its foot is a tropical shore (Campeche, Mexico) on which are piles of logwood (a commercially important dye-stuff about which there was much Anglo-Spanish feuding). 1737
Etching and engraving