GET OUT OF THE WAY. As thenewPremier--has now nail'd the old Premier (up out of the way)--to the mast : and fastened the hatches down--upon the un-COMMON vagabonds--below in the hold.

[EAST (Sir Edward Hyde)], & BRIERLY, publisher.

Edité par [c.1835]., 1835

A propos de cet article

Letterpress handbill measuring 215 by 145mm. Unevenly trimmed and laid down on an album leaf (255 by 185mm).  Old vertical hold. Leamington, Brierly, A curious and unrecorded political broadside, seemingly satirising the policies of Sir Edward Hyde East (1764-1847), MP for Winchester, 1823-31. Born in Jamaica and embedded in the planter aristocracy of the nineteenth century, the content touches on his activities across the British Empire as well as domestically, and includes references to the commodity products of slavery, including coffee and sugar.   Parodied with the pseudonym "Hyde of Hyde", the text refers to his pro-Catholic stance in relation to "John of Tuam" (Irish Roman Catholic Archbishop John McHale), and possibly makes an arch allusion to a scandal concerning his son-in-law James William Croft. In March 1819 whilst East was stationed in Bengal as a colonial judge, Croft was found guilty by the Calcutta supreme court of the seduction (and impregnation) of the daughter of a family friend. This incident appears to be jabbed at in the following: "Under the head of ADULTERATION, intends to make the "Chicory" carry some of the load now on the back of the Ceylon and West India Coffee." The double meaning here is that roasted chicory root had long been added to added to bulk up or "adulterate" coffee when actual beans were not available.   This is then extrapolated into what maybe a comment on East's continued troubles in Jamaica in the aftermath of the 1833 Emancipation Act. The legal framework devised to transition planters away from enslaved labour bound their formerly enslaved workers into a mandatory five-year period of "Apprenticeship". Unsurprisingly, the Black residents of the island were reluctant participants in this scheme, and letters from Alexander Barclay and Hinton East, Hyde East's joint attorneys for his coffee and sugar estates in Jamaica, attest to the difficulties their overseers had in harvesting the crops (see the 1839 Jamaica Parliamentary Papers).    A further barb of the missive may contain the key to its perspective: "[Hyde] Intends to haul over the contents of the country chemists or practitioners--sanctums--as there are two meanings in the word "Drug"." The John Johnson collection of ephemera at the Bodleian contains 26 items pertaining to J.W. Brierly of Leamington, 22 Regent Street, all of which are the labels or brochures for a pharmacy. The Brierly who printed this handbill, addressed 59 Regent Street, therefore may have been an earlier iteration of the family business, or another family member. Clearly the political actions surrounding the abolition of slavery and the export of commodities from the British colonies was having an impact on the livelihood of regional pharmacists, who stocked such goods.    The text also touches on the economic cost of the 1833 Emancipation Act: "Intends excluding from the British markets Slave-grown Sugar--the produce of Brazil, Cuba, Porto Rico, and St. Croix--thereby relieve the nation of an expenditure of three million annually on the coast of Africa--Thus enable England to balance the account the Almighty has against her--to pay the debt due to the Colonists--and will give her the power of stooping to pick up her honour." The "debt due to the Colonists" surely refers to the near £20 million paid out to enslavers for their loss of property through abolition. Indeed, according to the UCL Legacies of British Slavery, Sir Edward Hyde East received over £21,000 compensation between eight individual claims.    It's hard to entirely ascertain the tone or perspective of this piece, however it does demonstrate the far reaching impact of slavery, abolition, and the associated commodities of enslaved labour, on every strata of nineteenth-century British life and economy.    No copies located through OCLC, LibraryHub or internet searches as of August 2023. .

N° de réf. du vendeur 249964

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: GET OUT OF THE WAY. As thenewPremier--has now nail'd the old Premier (up out of the way)--to the mast : and fastened the hatches down--upon the un-COMMON vagabonds--below in the hold.
• Éditeur: [c.1835].
• Date de parution: 1835