Muir spent his life fighting for the rights of the poor and the oppressed. Encouraged by the Revolution in France, he pressed for parliamentary reform in Britain. In 1793 he was charged with sedition and sentenced to fourteen years exile in Botany Bay, Australia. Three years later Muir arranged his escape to America but he was arrested by the Spanish and badly injured when the ship he was on was attacked by the British. Assumed to be dead by the authorities, Muir reached Paris where he was treated as a great hero and martyr. In this engraving, beneath the image, there is a verse adapted from a poem by James Thomson. It begins: “Should fate command me to the farthest verge. Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes…”