A Print of a “Patriotick Barber”

On 14 Feb 1775, 250 years ago today, Robert Sayer and John Bennett published a satirical print, probably created by Philip Dawe, titled “The Patriotick Barber of New York.”

As I discussed back here, that was one of several images Sayer, Bennett, and probably Dawe produced for British customers interested in American affairs.

The artist appears to have taken inspiration from news stories printed in British newspapers. In this case, the article appeared in the 7 January Kentish Gazette, the 13 January Edinburgh Advertiser, and perhaps elsewhere.

As quoted by R. T. H. Haley in The Boston Port Bill as Pictured by a Contemporary London Cartoonist, it said:

The following card, copies of which were circulated at New York, is too singular not to merit insertion:

“A Card,
“New York, Oct. 3rd.

“The thanks of the worthy sons of liberty in solemn Congress assembled, were this night voted and unanimously allowed to be justly due to Mr. Jacob Vredenburgh, Barber, for his firm spirited and patriotic conduct, in refusing to complete an operation, vulgarly called Shaving, which he had begun on the face of Captain John Crozer, Commander of the Empress of Russia, one of his Majesty’s [troop] transports, now lying in the river, but most fortunately and providentially was informed of the identity of the gentleman’s person, when he had about half finished the job.

“It is most devoutly to be wished that all Gentlemen of the Razor will follow this wise, prudent, interesting and praiseworthy example, so steadily, that every person who pays due allegiance to his Majesty, and wishes Peace, Happiness, and Unanimity to the Colonies, may have his beard grow as long as ever was King Nebuchadnezzar’s.”

The picture showed the barber, well wigged but ugly and sneering, pushing the handsome but half-shaved captain out of his chair. “Orders of Government” poke from the captain’s pocket while another man tries to hand him a letter marked “To Capt. Crozer.”

The print carried the subtitle “The Captain in the Suds,” and underneath it was the verse:

Then Patriot grand, maintain thy Stand,
And whilst thou sav’st Americ’s Land,
Preserve the Golden Rule;

Forbid the Captains there to roam,
Half shave them first, then send ’em home,
Objects of ridicule.

On the barbershop wall are engraved portraits of the Earls of Camden and Chatham, British politicians who spoke up for the colonies’ cause, plus Chatham’s recent speech. Beside them hangs the Continental Congress’s Articles of Association, a boycott that hadn’t actually been announced when this incident took place.

In the top and bottom of the picture are wig boxes with the names of local Whigs: “Alexander McDugell,” John Lamb, Isaac Sears, and so on. One says, “Welle Franklin.” Was that the royal governor of New Jersey?

Perhaps the most striking detail of this print is that I can’t find any mention of the incident in the American press, nor of the men involved. The event appears to have been recorded only in the British newspaper reports, and those would have been long forgotten if not for this picture.

But because the print was so dramatic, 200 years after publication it inspired Ashley Vernon and Greta Hartwig to create a one-act opera, The Barber of New York.

TOMORROW: More about the barber.

“Patriotick Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina”

Starting in late 1774, the British publishers Robert Sayer and John Bennett issued a series of five satirical prints about the political turmoil in North America.

The mezzotint engravings are unsigned, but in 1908 R. T. H. Halsey identified the artist as Philip Dawe (1745?-1809?). He might have trained under William Hogarth, but by the 1770s Dawe was on his own, engraving prints based on several artists’ paintings.

The five cartoons are:

• “The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man,” October 1774 (incidentally the first visual depiction of the Boston Tea Party).
• “The Bostonians in Distress,” November 1774 (also credited to John Marlin Will).
• “The Alternative Of Williams-Burg,” February 1775.
• “The Patriotick Barber of New York,” February 1775.
• “A Society of Patriotick Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina,” March 1775.

The last was no doubt inspired by the London Morning Chronicle’s January report that fifty-one women from Edenton had signed a statement declaring that they would adhere to the North Carolina Provincial Congress’s exhortation not to buy imported goods.

The women’s statement didn’t actually mention tea, but the provincial congress did. Dawe therefore emphasized tea, with women dumping their tea in a bag for disposal, a baby playing with a tea set on the floor, and a dog urinating on a tea caddy. Dawe portrayed several of the female figures as laughably masculine, drinking from a punchbowl and wielding a gavel.

That print shows one woman signing a sheet that says:

We the Ladys of Edenton do hereby solemnly Engage not to Conform to that Pernicious Custom of Drinking Tea, or that we the aforesaid Ladys Promote the use of any Manufacture from England, until such time that all Acts which tend to Enslave this our Native Country shall be Repealed.

That statement has since been ascribed to the women of Edenton themselves. But those words don’t appear in the statement printed by the Morning Chronicle. It therefore seems likely that Dawe created that sentence as part of his caricature of the Americans.

TOMORROW: An even more dubious quotation linked to the “Edenton Tea Party.”

The First Picture of the Boston Tea Party

As a farewell to the Boston Tea Party on this anniversary week, I’m running what I suspect is the earliest visual depiction of the event, created by Philip Dawe in 1774.

Does that proximity in time mean this is our most accurate portrayal? Not at all. Dawe didn’t see the tea destroyed since he was in London. And he wasn’t trying to be historically accurate. The daytime sky and the ease with which the Bostonians are tipping those heavy chests over the rail show that the artist was merely representing what had happened. He ignored what became a major element in later American images: the men’s “Mohawk” disguises.

Dawe was using the Tea Party to make a point in this larger political cartoon, titled “Bostonians Paying the Excise Man or Tarring and Feathering.” It lumped together the destruction of the tea with the mob attacks on Customs officers, the protests at Liberty Tree against the Stamp Act, and the threat of hanging.