A fascinating and highly unusual Revolutionary-era English political satire attacking radical reformers, republicans, and followers of Thomas Paine during the turbulent years surrounding the French Revolution.

The text is written in iron gall ink on laid paper and consists of a numbered satirical “creed” mocking revolutionary ideology, republicanism, equality rhetoric, and anti-monarchical sentiment. 

References include Thomas Paine (“Tom Paine is the Apostle of Truth”), guillotines and revolutionary violence, republicanism and anarchy equality and liberty satire, attacks on radical political philosophy.

The manuscript appears contemporary to the events described and likely dates to the 1790s or very early 1800s, during the height of British anti-Jacobin reaction. A remarkable survival of Georgian political culture, likely intended as a political squib, debating society satire, club manuscript, or anti-radical propaganda text.

The creed is signed "Anacharsis Pain Cloots."

Anacharsis Cloots was the derogatory name given to Jean-Baptiste du Val-de-Grâce, baron de Cloots. He was one of the most notorious radical revolutionaries associated with the French Revolution and was famous in Britain as a symbol of extreme republicanism and revolutionary fanaticism. "Pain" is likely a reference to Thomas Paine.