Lord North as a juggler squats on a table which is on a raised platform. He wears a harlequin's suit with his ribbon and star and holds a mask in his right. hand, in his left. a conjuror's box. On the table are three large money-bags, a pack of cards, balls, and cones. Behind him are ministers and ministerialists (l. to right.): Dyson as Mungo the African slave holds up a round box, Sandwich holds his cricket-bat over his shoulder, on his head rests the model of a man-of-war. Behind North on his right. is Mansfield in judge's wig and robes; on North's left is Bute, holding a coronet over North's head; in front of Bute is Charles Fox or Lord Holland with a fox's head. On the right. are three other ministers all wearing ribbons, one with a military coat being Barrington, Secretary-at-War. In front of the table is a serpent on a pedestal. Below the platform is a crowd of people, some watching the juggler, others turning aside with gestures of despair. The principal figures are: a seated man holding a pole on the top of which is a pair of breeches with the pockets inside out to show his poverty; a standing man with a ragged coat holds his head in despair; an emaciated Asiatic lies on the ground.  
<p><br>The text explains the scene as a vision, a juggler's booth in St. James's Street, the serpent being a "symbol of the Practitioner's address, cunning and deceit". The figures round the juggler seeming to applaud were aiding his cheats. "Handfulls of gold being thrown up in the air . . . scattered mischief and destruction all round." The exasperated crowd at last demolished the booth and the scaffold.  1 May 1773
</p>
<br>Etching
1773<div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1773-00-00T00:00:00Z/9</div>
<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1855-0609-1961">https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1855-0609-1961</a>