Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke (tokens)

[bruce61813]

There is a "Condor" token, 'The End of Pain' http://tinyurl.com/dzrevr that is both a social comment and a pun. The URL has a picture and the basic story behind it, it is a fairly expensive token, as both token collectors and historians hunt for them.

Bruce

[Figleaf]

Two puns even, as Paine wrote "Rights of man", but I'd argue that the comment is political, rather than social.

Tom Paine was an emotional, quick thinking author of several pamphlets (the London forerunners of opinionated magazines. His advantage was that he could write clearly and understandably on complicated matters, such as the French (Rights of Man) and American (Common sense) revolution. The token has of course nothing to do with the American revolution, but condemns his support of the French revolution.

Paine is often counted as a "father" of he American revolution". This is an exaggeration. While he supported the American revolution, many others in his time did so too and there is little evidence that his pamphlets were influential on the founders of the United States.

Moreover, Paine's involvement with the French Girondin party made him suspect in the fledgling US, where people found it difficult to distinguish between the perpetrators of the terror (the Montagnard party) and its victims, the Girondins. Paine and his insights were regularly condemned by leading Americans such as John Adams. When he was arrested in France, the American ambassador did nothing to help him. Even today, many Americans would oppose such Painist views as deism, opposition to the death penalty and direct democracy.

Paine, who does have a claim to the title "father of liberalism" cannot be understood without his greatest opponent, Edmund Burke, who has a good claim to the title "father of conservatism". Burke's book Reflections on the Revolution in France was not just the cause for Paine's rights of man, but also a perfect counterpoint, difficult to read, detailed, intellectual, unemotional, like its author, who gave up a long friendship with Charles James Fox, rather than forgive him for disagreeing with him. Burke, like Paine, supported independence for the US, but also for Ireland (where he hailed from) and India. Many contemporary Americans will be closer to Burke than to Paine in their political thinking.

There is a whole series of political tokens issued by both camps. The conservatives celebrate the Prince of Wales as a symbol of ongoing royal rule and the French royal house, attack Paine and his rights of man as well as the French revolution and its ideas. Liberals celebrate how they are acquitted from charges of sedition, or their martyrdom in jail. I'll post a few examples when time allows.

Peter

[bruce61813]

Here is another to add to the collection, note the " At Home" address...

D & H Middlesex 391 and 392-397.) this one is D&H 396B
"Although this token is in a grim fashion made payable at the residence of the four persons named on the reverse, namely, at Newgate Prison, there is no evidence as to who the issuers were ; it is, however, undoubtedly a genuine token struck for circulation, and as two of the people named were publishers and a third was a printer, I have inserted the piece here rather than in section in. Beyond the fact that Holt, Ridgway, Symonds and Winterbotham were all suffering from the stringency of the times, there was no connection between them, so I deal with each separately. "
from "TOKENS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CONNECTED WITH BOOKSELLERS ftf BOOKMAKERS
(AUTHORS, PRINTERS, PUBLISHERS, ENGRAVERS AND PAPER MAKERS)" BY W. LONGMAN
http://www.archive.org/stream/tokensofeighteen00longiala/tokensofeighteen00longiala_djvu.txt

Bruce

[Figleaf]

The London corresponding society was established in 1792. In spite of its name, it had members all over the country. It campaigned for universal male suffrage and annual parliamentary elections. Its members called each other "citizen", a clear reference to the "citoyen" of the French revolution. Its founder was Thomas Hardy, a shoemaker who also occurs on other tokens.

On 27th October 1795, some 150 000 members of the London Corresponding Society gathered on Copenhagen Fields in London and passed a resolution, practically calling for civil war. The popularity of Paine's ideas led to a clampdown by the Pitt government. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, making meetings of the Society illegal. It was quietly infiltrated with royalists, who could afford the fee (a shilling on entry plus a shilling a week) and it was turned impotent.

The token is DH Middlesex 286, 1/2 penny 1795. Obverse: Four persons looking at a bundle of sticks (symboli for strength through co-operation) LONDON CORRESPONDING SOCIETY. Reverse: Dove with olive branch (peace) UNITED FOR A REFORM OF PARLIAMENT.

Peter

[Figleaf]

Publishers and booksellers were the loud mouth of the intellectual middle class, sympathetic to the French revolution. Daniel Isaac Eaton was a London bookseller at the "cock at swine". He was first tried for sedition in 1793, as he stocked and sold Tom Paine's "Second part of the rights of man". A month later he was in trouble again, this time for publishing Paine's Letter addressed to the addressers on the late proclamation". His third trial, in 1794 was for publishing "Politics for the people". He was completely acquitted only of the third charge and received no punishment for the others. The London Corresponding Society rewarded each juror in the third case with a silver medal (DH Middlesex 203) and Eaton himself issued a halfpenny token with himself as hero.

This is DH Middlesex301, halfpenny 1795. The motto FRANGAS NON FLECTES means "you may break me, but you shall not bend me". D. I. EATON THREE TIMES ACQUITTED OF SEDITION was a bit optimistic. The reverse is generally believed to the cock at swine, but I think it was also a reference of the publication "Pig's meat" (see DH Middlesex 794), whose main business was to denounce British royalty.

Unfortunately, Eaton remained a true believer He was tried again in 1795 for publishing "Female jockey club" and in 1796 for publishing "Poltical dictionary" and "Duties of citizenship". His luck ran out, he was found guilty of libel, escaped to the US but had the bad taste to return to Britain 3 years later. He was promptly arrested, spent 15 months in prison and had his stock, worth £28 000 burnt. In 1812 he was again found guilty, this time of publishing Paine's "Third part of the age of reason". He spent 18 months in Newgate prison and died impoverished a few years later.

Peter

[Figleaf]

Of those supporting the French revolution, Thomas Spence was the most numismatically active. He was a clerk and a schoolmaster before opening a bookshop on the corner of Chancery Lane and High Holborn. I like to think that it is the spot on the picture, now 300 High Holborn. He issued "The case of Thomas Spence, bookseller, the corner of Chancery Lane, London who was committed to Clerkenwell prison on Monday the 10th of December 1792, for selling the second part of of Paine's "Rights of Man". He was held without trial as the Habeas Corpus act was suspended. He was released without charges in 1794.

Spence issued a weekly, called Pig's Meat. It said below its title: "Intended to promote among the labouring part of mankind proper ideas about their situation, of their importance and of their rights. And to convince them that their forlorn condition has not been entirely overlooked and forgotten, nor their just cause unpleased, neither by their maker, nor by the best and most enlightened men in all ages." The paper nevertheless seemed addressed more at those "enlightened men" than at the "labouring part of mankind", as its price was a shilling. Spence's "Plan for Society" made his views clear: land nationalization, easy divorce for the poor, public libraries and free schools were his main proposals.

After his release, Spence moved to nearby 8, Little turnstile in London and went into coin production also. He claims to have had 53 halfpenny and 15 farthing dies which he would mix at the customer's request. In fact, while coining, he would throw some coins out of the window to attract attention. Most of his dies had political subjects, like the one pictured. Most supported the Foxites, but Spence also made dies with opposing views.

This is DH Middlesex 804c. The heads are those of political adversaries Charles James Fox (right, laughing) and William Pitt (left, crying). In ase you didn't know they fought each other, Spence added ODD FELLOWS. Quis rides (who laughs?) betrays Spence's sympathies. The reverse shows a hand with a heart on it in a wreath of olive (peace), probably an oblique reference to revolutionary France. As Fox put it: "Peace is the wish of the French of Italy Spain Germany and all the world, and Great Britain alone the cause of preventing its accomplishment, and this not for any point of honour or even interest, but merely lest there should be an example in the modern world of a great powerful Republic.", showing an underestimation of contemporary French bellicosity.

Spence went broke in 1797 and sold his dies to Skidmore, a fellow producer of toke halfpence on demand. Their tokens are political propaganda pieces rather than trade tokens, but they are an interesting sign of their times.

Peter