In 1776, an eloquently worded demand for republican rule was routinely dismissed by His Britannic Majesty's Government.

Mr Jefferson's Letter reaches LondonAnd yet trouble was not so easy to avert. Because the revolutionary document known as Mr Jefferson's Letter was dispersed as a printed broadside, a viral format that suited widespread distribution and public reading throughout the British Empire. And worse still the rich colonial landowners behind it threatened more trouble than Scots-Irish Nationalists. Perhaps even the beginning of the most serious uprising against the Crown since the time of Oliver Cromwell.

In a clumsy, ham-fisted reaction, King George the Third (pictured) declared that the American colonies were in open rebellion. But his subsequent appeal for assistance from friendly states was a prescient masterstroke. Because shortly thereafter, a French language variant appeared on the Streets of Bourbon Paris.