Admiral Hosier's Ghost.To the Tune of Come and listen to my Ditty. As, near Potro Bello lying / On the gently swelling Flood,/ At Midnight with Streamers flying/ Our triumphant Navy rode [...]
C. Mosley sculp [1740]
Scarce etching and engraving, sheet 395 x 270mm (15½ x 10½"). Trimmed around image and text; repaired tears and creases. Laid on album sheet.
The ghosts of Francis Hosier (1673-1727) and his crew appear to a ship carrying Edward Vernon (1684-1757) and his men, at Portobelo in Panama. Hosier led an unsuccessful unsuccessful expedition to the Spanish Caribbean (1723-27) and was in the course of a blockade of Portobelo when a virulent fever broke out and killed Hosier and 4000 men. Vernon succeeded where Hosier had failed, taking Portobelo in 1739, but, in line with the omens of this print, Vernon's initial success turned into eventual failure by the time of his return to England in 1742. This print was occasioned by the poem printed below, by Richard Glover, 'a blatantly political piece which sought to misrepresent Hosier's fate to support then current attacks on the Walpole government, ascribing his death to his resentment at the inactivity forced on him by government orders and his inability to prevent the devastation of his fleet by disease' (DNB).
BM Satires 2422
[Ref: 39672] £420.00
Scarce etching and engraving, sheet 395 x 270mm (15½ x 10½"). Trimmed around image and text; repaired tears and creases. Laid on album sheet.
The ghosts of Francis Hosier (1673-1727) and his crew appear to a ship carrying Edward Vernon (1684-1757) and his men, at Portobelo in Panama. Hosier led an unsuccessful unsuccessful expedition to the Spanish Caribbean (1723-27) and was in the course of a blockade of Portobelo when a virulent fever broke out and killed Hosier and 4000 men. Vernon succeeded where Hosier had failed, taking Portobelo in 1739, but, in line with the omens of this print, Vernon's initial success turned into eventual failure by the time of his return to England in 1742. This print was occasioned by the poem printed below, by Richard Glover, 'a blatantly political piece which sought to misrepresent Hosier's fate to support then current attacks on the Walpole government, ascribing his death to his resentment at the inactivity forced on him by government orders and his inability to prevent the devastation of his fleet by disease' (DNB).
BM Satires 2422
[Ref: 39672] £420.00