Carlos Khan's Triumphal Entry into Leadenhall
(5 December, 1783)

This caricature by James Sayer was published on 5 December, 1783; it was the most popular of a number on the subject of Charles James Fox's proposed India Bill, which was intended to reform the administration of India. The opposition, led by William Pitt the Younger, objected that it gave too many powers to the ministers of government responsible for the appointment of the Governor of India; some declared that Fox intended in this way to aggrandize himself at the expense of the Crown. The title of "Carlos Khan" became a satirical reproof for his supposed ambitions.

Opposition to the India Bill became heated as it went before the House of Lords; Sayer's Triumphal Entry became a particularly popular satirical print, and was credited by many — including Pitt — for the defeat of the Bill in the Lords on 17 December. More influential, in all probability, was the expression by the King of his own opposition to the Bill. Fox's government fell on the day following the defeat of his Bill, and was replaced by one led by Pitt.

Sayer's caricature shows Fox, imagined as a kind of "oriental despot," led to the door of India House by an elephant bearing the face of Fox's coalition partner Lord North; his arrival is announced by Edmund Burke, one of the bill's chief proponents, in the guise of a trumpeter. Sayer himself was a part-time lawyer, and a frequent contributor to the satirical press; he was rewarded following Pitt's appointment as Prime Minister with a number of sinecures, including Marshall of the Office of the Exchequer.

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