Magna Britannia: Her Colonies Reduced

This print was used to illustrate an edition of Benjamin Franklin's Memoirs published in London in 1833. Britannia appears as a stone figure seated on the ground with her arms and legs severed. No longer able to hold her spear and shield, she leans against a globe and weeps. Her scattered limbs are identified as Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and New England. A ribbon inscribed "Date Obolum Bellisario" [give a penny to Belisarius] points to financial and military difficulties following the Seven Year's War, with brooms tied to the masts of ships in the right distance indicating that they are for sale.

The image reproduces a print that Franklin designed and circulated privately in London in the winter of 1765-66. As an agent for the province of Pennsylvania, he used tit to lobby against the Stamp Act of 1765. The latter forced American colonists to print periodicals and official documents on specially stamped British paper purchased at a premium. Colonial resistance, backed by British merchants, led to the act's repeal in March 1766. The image was soon reissued, in Philadelphia in 1767, then in London's Political Register (December 1768) to oppose Parliament's ongoing attempts to tax the colonies.