Baking Ships – Political Cartoons During the War of 1812

Posted February 6, 2020 by Ryan Moore

I’ve always been interested in the political cartoons of the late 18th/early 19th century. They say a lot about common perceptions held at the time, but also radical or subversive opinions, just as they do today. The Royal Navy appears in many of them as both the saviour of England, and the lovable buffoon of Jack Tar ashore.

Of particular interest to us are two cartoons generated in 1798 and 1814, presented here. The 1798 cartoon titled “High Fun for John Bull” was authored by Thomas Rowlandson, a London cartoonist. In this image is illustrated caricatures of the French, Spanish, and Dutch providing ships and guns to a ‘Dutch oven’, wherein they are transmuted to British ownership represented by John Bull and Jack Tar. In 1798 Britain was at war with all three and yet still ruled the waves, snapping up the shipping of each, making the fortunes of many a crew aboard His Majesty’s ships. Jack Tar walks away with the finished result of the ‘baking’, while John Bull cracks the whip for the Dutch to make more ships on behalf of the French, ostensibly to then capture at sea. A full transcript of the cartoon can be read here:

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/812000

Later in 1814, an American cartoonist named William Charles channelled the 1798 cartoon and created “John Bull Making a New Batch of Ships to Send to the Lakes.” In this cartoon, John Bull / George III rushes to ‘bake’ a new batch of ships to send to the Great Lakes after the Battle of Lake Erie. At this time, one of the ships he is ‘baking’ would, in actuality, be HMS Psyche, which was pre-fabricated in England in 1813 and shipped in pieces to Kingston for assembly over 1814. John Bull’s assistants include a ragged man representing France (as an ally following Napoleon’s first exile) and two presumably British citizens who warn of losses of guns and ships destined for the lakes, taken by American privateers at sea. The British citizen expresses a desire to keep the guns and ships at home, lest the Americans ‘make fun’ (i.e. sport) by taking them on the high seas. A full transcript can be found here:

https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/42795

Both cartoons likely speak to prevailing public opinion of opposing naval forces. Interestingly, both also offer virtually the same caricature of the Frenchman with the dough trough, despite being from different years and different nationalities. These are just some political cartoons from that time period that draw on the imagery of ‘baking’ something up, be it a cockamamie invasion, minting alliances between continental bedfellows, or installing new kings in European courts.