"Satire based on a novel of the same title on the cruel and hypocritical behaviour of a female former convict with four scenes enclosed within rococo scrolls. The scene on the left shows Polly Haycock, visibly pregnant, standing on a quay chained with a group of other convicts, guarded by a turnkey as they await transportration; above a mask holds a ribbon in its mouth lettered "With Child by the under turnkey, put on board a Lighter, from thence into a Transport Ship bound for Virginia". In the centre are two scenes, the lower one showing a coach travelling through a town being approached by two robbers, one of whom stands at the coach door raising his hands towards the woman sitting inside who wears a watch. Beneath this scene is written "Rob Theif. Or the Lady of ye Gold Watch Polly Haycock". In the scene above this a nearly naked woman is kneeling on a stone, her hands tied behind her back, being whipped by a black man; in the background on the left a man can be seen through a window sitting eating while on the right a man on horseback raises his hands. Written above is "Whipp'd during dinner her master boasting that no Monarch upon earth had so fine Musick as he fancied her Cries. In the Intreim [sic] the Justice Releasing and takes her home". In the fourth scene on the right she stands in a fashionable dress in a grand room holding a stick, a girl lies at her feet in evident distress, her skirt pulled up; a fashionably black page-boy stands on the left and three female servants stand in the background on the right. Above the scene a mask holds a ribbon in its mouth lettered "Her usage to her Free-born English Servants is as they do Negroes and Felons in the Plantations tho' she felt the Mesery herself". Beneath is written Remember Mrs. Branch & her daughter (a reference to the notorious case of Elizabeth Branch who murdered her servant in 1740)."--British Museum online catalogue
Description:
Title from item., Print made by: George Bickham the Younger. See British Museum online catalogue., Four designs enclosed by scrolls, each with its own inscription., Temporary local subject terms: Boats: lighter -- Plates -- Dishes: tankard -- Food: cooked fowl -- Furniture: table -- Chair -- Mantel -- Female servant -- Female dress: gold watch -- Sticks -- Transports -- Architectural details: Virginia planter's house., and Watermark.
Publisher:
publisher not identified
Subject (Name):
Branch, Elizabeth and Haycock, Mary, active 1741
Subject (Topic):
Black people, Carriages & coaches, Criminals, Dogs, Horses, Masks, Prison laborers, Servants, Enslaved people, and Whips