Print of Franklin's anti-Stamp Act cartoon, originally issued on card stock and distributed to members of Parliament prior to debate on the repeal, depicting a dismembered Britannia to represent the alienation of the American colonies as a consequence of non-repeal. Shows Britannia, fallen of and resting against the globe of the world, her limbs inscribed with the names of the colonies strewn around her, her shield fallen beside her, and her lance, speared through her "New England" leg, pointed at her chest (allusion to the New England riots). She sits upon a barren land, near a withered English oak, a dropped olive branch, and British ships marked for sale by brooms attached to their masts. A sash inscribed in Latin, "Penny for Bellisario" (Roman military hero of Emperor Justinian accused of treason and reduced to beggary), lies across her chest., Manuscript note by DuSimitiere on recto: North America November the first MDCCLXV. The original print done in England on the back of a message card, the invention and for the use of Benjamin Franklin Esq.; LL.D. agent for the Province of Pennsylvania, in London., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., Described in Edwin Wolf and Marie Elena Korey, eds. Quarter of a Millennium... (Philadelphia, The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1981), entry 40., See Edwin Wolf's "Benjamin Franklin's Stamp Act Cartoon" Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 99 (1955), p. 388-396.
Creator
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790, artist
Date
[ca. 1766]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department political cartoons - [1766] Mag [395.F.5]
