(American Revolution) — Benjamin Wilson | Wilson’s satire of the Stamp Act

(American Revolution) — Wilson, Benjamin

The Repeal. [London: 18 March 1766]

One sheet (sheet size: 292 x 457 mm). Engraving on laid paper; trimmed to the platemark.

Rare first edition, first issue—Wilson’s satire of the Stamp Act, published on the very day of its repeal.

A bitterly comic funeral procession for the Stamp Act, this instantly successful print shows George Grenville carrying a coffin marked “Miss Ame-Stamp” to a vault, trailed by key supporters of the Act including Lord Bute, Lord Temple, and Lord Sandwich. In the background, goods wait to be loaded onto three ships named Conway, Rockingham, and Grafton—honoring the architects of repeal. The lead mourner, Anti-Sejanus (William Scott), delivers a sermon while a dog urinates on his leg.

Wilson’s print was issued within minutes of repeal and sold out in four days—before pirated copies (identifiable by text beneath the image and smaller dimensions) flooded the market. “In those four days, I sold about 2,000 at a shilling apiece,” he wrote in his autobiography; “of the pirated copies above sixteen thousand.”

This example is from the exceedingly rare proof state before the addition of the second line of title (“or the Funeral of Miss Ame-Stamp”).

"One of the most famous and popular of the political satires commenting on the Stamp Act is this one ... An instant success, it became one of the most copied satires of the period" (Dolmetsch). 

REFERENCES:

BM Satire 4140; Dolmetsch, Rebellion and Reconciliation: Satirical Prints on the Revolution at Williamsburg, pp. 38-39; Cresswell 623