This engraving by noted Patriot Paul Revere is one of the most wellknown images produced in the colonies before the American Revolution. Such engravings were widely popular in both Great Britain and its American colonies during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, serving as a way of spreading news and political commentary about current events. The popularity of engravings increased in the colonies in the aftermath of the French and Indian War (1754–63), when they became an effective means of expressing dissent to British policies intended to extract funds from the colonists to pay off the heavy debts caused by the conflict and pay for the British troops stationed in the colonies for their defense. These engravings, while comparatively unrefined, proved vitally important in calling attention to the increasingly domineering rule of the British government and fostering a sense of cohesion among the colonists. Powerful imagery was particularly important in more remote areas of the colonies, where literacy rates were often close to 50 percent.