Two boxers face each other with clenched fists; representing the by-election for the City of London held on 3-5 March 1795. Etching possibly by I. Cruickshank, 1795.

The candidates at the election were Alderman Combe (boxer on the left), who was a supporter of Charles James Fox, a brewer and an amateur boxer, and William Lushington (boxer on the right), who was a supporter of Pitt and an East India merchant. Combe declares 'I'll box the minister about if I get in & tip him seven the main'. His contestant retorts 'Now Mr Alderman I vil show you vone Jews blow.' On the ground are books and papers, among them: 'Pain(e)s Rights of Man', 'The whole art of boxing made easy', 'A petition for peace on giving up all the West India Islands Corsica Fleet etc etc; King Lord and Commons...' A bust portrait of King George III sits on the right wall. The boxers' seconders attend: a backer sits on a cask in the wings and a man approaches from the right holding a bottle and lemon.

Lushington "offered himself for London in the by-election of 1795, as a friend of Pitt's government and the prosecution of the war with revolutionary France. He defeated the Whig candidate Alderman Combe."--R. Thorne (ed.), The history of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, 1986, s.v. Lushington. He is represented here as Jewish, but as he was a son of the vicar of Eastbourne, that seems unlikely. He may be represented as Daniel Mendoza, a Jewish boxer who was at the height of his fame in 1795

[London] (no. 3 Piccadilly) : S W Fores, 3 March 1795.

1 print : etching ; platemark 22.5 x 32.9 cm

A worthy alderman and his friends canvasing or strong recommendations for a mem'br of parliament

British Museum, Catalogue of political and personal satires, vol. vii., London 1942, no. 8626

Wellcome Collection 585554i