He also produced and circulated a political cartoon depicting to what end the Stamp Act and other such measures might lead. The picture was a bloody one, showing Britannia dismembered, her legs and arms lying about her as she leaned disconsolately against a globe. The lost limbs were labeled Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and New England; the motto declared “Date Obolum Bellisario,” or “Give a penny to Belisarius,” referring to a Roman general who reduced the provinces to Rome’s rule but was reduced himself to poverty in old age. Franklin had the cartoon printed on cards “on which I have
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