Conder: We Also are the People

elverno · August 10, 2004 4:37AM

One of Spence's political tokens, this one features Charles Fox, who was usually the leader of the Opposition, on the obverse and two citizens shaking hands with a soldier on the reverse. This little piece of subversive propaganda was intended to remind the professional soldiers that they were oppressing citizens of their own country when they obeyed the government in breaking up anti-government rallies. There was actually a fairly long history of using troops for this purpose and was one of the reasons that Britons distrusted the idea of a large standing army. The most famous incident happened after the Wars with the "Peterloo" massacre.

Spence was a man with revolutionary leanings that more than once landed him in jail. He produced the famous series of tokens with a crowned pig representing George III on one side.

This piece is D&H 770 (Spence's Middlesex)