REVERE, Paul (1735-1818), engraver.
"The Mitred Minuet."
From The Royal American Magazine, Vol. I, no. 10, Published [Boston,] October 1774.
Etching on paper.
4 5/8" x 7 1/4" plate, 5 /18" x 8 1/4" sheet, 7 1/2" x 10 1/2" framed.

The Protestant reaction to the Quebec Act.

The cartoon features four bishops dancing around the Quebec Bill while other clerics observe the scene approvingly and Lords North and Bute (the latter in a kilt) stand beneath a flying Devil. The legislation, which granted the French population of Canada freedom to practice Catholicism and to retain French civil law in the province, angered Protestant New Englanders already reeling from the announcement of the Boston Port Act and other punitive legislation passed in response to the Boston Tea Party.

The anonymous engraving first appeared in the July 1774 issue of the London Magazine. Considering the political climate of the time, it comes as little surprise that it found a ready audience in America, prompting Revere to produce this copy for the Royal American Magazine for October 1774. Brigham, p. 124, notes that Revere recorded the following entry in his Day Book for 7 November 1774: "'Joseph Greenleaf Esqr Dr/ To Engraving a Plate for October Magazine 2-8-0.'" For a fuller discussion of the cartoon, see M. Dorothy George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum, Vol. 5, 1935.