Primary sourcePainting1792

The Friends of the People

Isaac Cruikshank · 1792

A 1792 satirical etching by Isaac Cruikshank linking Thomas Paine and Joseph Priestley as dangerous republican sympathizers.

This satirical print shows how contemporaries viewed Paine's republican politics as dangerous and devilish.

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Etching titled 'The Friendly of the People'. Two seated men sit at a table covered with a cloth, one on the left in a coat and one on the right in a jacket, each holding objects. A winged horned devil with a grin hovers above between them. Surrounding them are piles of weapons, tools, books labelled with titles, and framed pictures on the wall. Caption text is printed at the bottom. — Isaac Cruikshank, The Friends of the People, 1792. Wellcome Collection.

About this source

What it is

This etching, titled The Friends of the People, was made by Isaac Cruikshank in 1792 and is held by the Wellcome Collection. It shows two seated men, understood to be Paine and the scientist Joseph Priestley, with a grinning devil hovering above them.

Why it matters

The print is a contemporary caricature from the height of debate over Paine's writings and radical politics in Britain. It reveals how critics of the time portrayed Paine and his allies as threatening, devilish figures surrounded by weapons and radical books, showing the fear and anger his ideas provoked.

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Why do you think the artist chose to place a devil between the two men?
What do the objects and books around them suggest about how the artist wanted viewers to judge Paine and Priestley?
How might this image differ from how Paine or Priestley saw themselves?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Thomas Paine on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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