# After Dinner

Billy Burton says, “We have laughed at this glorious print some hundred times, and it yet possesses power to wrinkle our countenance.” It is far superior to the works of Johnston, of Boston, who “may have merits,” but “[h]is ‘Sketches’ are all alike—his fat old men and vulgar women are eternally the same, in figure, face, dress, and deportment—his niggers are from one stock of ebony—his loafers are re-duplicates—and his boys are truants from the same school usque ad nauseam.“

Burton’s racism, like that of Col. Crockett, shocks because of its sheer offhandedness.

An interesting scene, on board an East-Indiaman, showing the effects of a heavy lurch,---after dinner.--- / Capt F.M., inv. ; G. Cruikshank, fect. London : Pubd. Novr. 9th, 1818 by G Humphrey, 27 St. James's Stt., [sic] London, 1818. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/ds.08334/?st=image, accessed April 3, 2022.

Billy Burton sings “The Cork Leg”