Engraving (coloured impression) by Isaac Cruikshank. Officers and men of the British army are waist-deep in water. The central figure is the Duke of York astride a gun whose carriage is half immersed. He holds up a punch-bowl, singing and looking down at a party, half submerged, of officers (right). The black cymbal-player stands beside the gun (left) shouting with upraised cymbal. An officer in back view holds out a glass. Another seated on (?) a gun-carriage holds a British flag. An officer (right) sleeps with folded arms. A man whose head only emerges plays a triangle. Muskets and a drum hang from the branches of a tree (right). On the left a Highlander, astride a submerged tent, dips his hat into the water, singing: "And while we can get brandy boys we'll scorn to fly!" In the distance (left) a soldier perched on a high sign-post inscribed 'Best Road to Dunkirk' wields a fishing-rod, the line in the mouth of a soldier whose head and shoulders emerge from the water. Other small figures and half-submerged tents (left) complete the design. Beneath the title: 'A new Song'. The words beneath the design are: 'Why Soldiers Why Should we be Melancholy, boy; Why, Soldiers, why? Whose business 'tis to die What sighing fie! Damn fear, drink on, be jolly, boys! 'Tis he, you or I - cold hot wet & dry; We're allways bound to follow, boys, annd scorn to fly!' The wetness of the autumn in Flanders caused much sickness, water being ladled from the tents in hatfuls every morning when near Camphain. 'Narrate of the War', 1796, 1. 116. There was much discontent in the British army and outrageous and unfounded slanders against the Duke of York were spread by officers on leave in England. Rose, 'Pitt and the Great War', p. 200. Partial description from Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Vol. VII. 8344.