The Plumb-pudding in danger

The popular print depicts caricatures of the British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and the newly-crowned Emperor of France Napoleon, both wearing military uniforms, carving up a terrestrial globe into spheres of influence.

The peace overtures came to nothing: before the end of the year, a combined Franco-Spanish fleet would be decisively defeated by the Royal Navy at the Battle of Trafalgar, giving Britain unrivalled control of the seas, but Napoleon would establish a dominant position in Europe by first defeating an Austrian army through manoeuvre in the Ulm Campaign, and then winning a great victory over a combined Russian-Austrian army at the Battle of Austerlitz, ending the Third Coalition with the 1805 Peace of Pressburg.

He wears a red regimental uniform of the British Army – perhaps the Cinque Port Volunteer Corps that he had raised in Kent – with powdered hair in a queue, and a cocked tricorn hat.

The back of Pitt's chair is decorated with the image of lion carrying a cross of St George (sometimes a Union Flag) and Napoleon's has an Imperial eagle clutching a bonnet rouge.

Below this is a quotation attributed to William Windham in the Political Register newspaper, but actually taken from Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1, lines 153-4: "The great Globe itself and all which it inherit", is too small to satisfy such insatiable appetites.