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In 1775, the Rev. John Home Tooke, philologist,* scholar and political agitator, was moved to such indignation at the sacrifices which had taken place on the battlefields of Lexington and Concord that he launched in London a public subscription in behalf of "our beloved American fellow subjects." Result: he was fined £200 and clapped into King's Bench prison for a year. The kindness of his Tory gaolers in permitting him to dine out once a week at the nearby Dog & Duck tavern only served to increase Whig Tooke's bitterness against them; he blamed the gout from which he suffered all...

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