As the new Premier--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...

by GET OUT OF THE WAY

£750 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

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

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