Weg met de Regie! Amerikaansche Waar (Away with the Excise! American Goods)

This hand-colored etching depicts a coastal scene where Dutch soldiers confront a mounted officer over smuggled American merchandise. Barrels and cargo litter the shore as a sailing vessel anchors offshore. The print protests French trade restrictions imposed during the Napoleonic occupation of the Netherlands, using the figure of the horseman—likely representing French customs authority—as the target of popular resentment.

The work belongs to the tradition of political satire prints that emerged from 16th-century broadsheets through the 18th-century caricaturists Hogarth, Gillray, and Rowlandson. Dutch spotprenten (spot prints) used humor and exaggeration to mobilize public opinion against unpopular policies. This image blends social commentary with graphic narrative—a direct ancestor of the sequential storytelling that would define modern comics.