- Spence became a schoolmaster and he gradually developed radical political views and in the 1770s began to argue that all land should be nationalised. Spence was strongly influenced by the writings of Tom Paine. In Newcastle he sold Paine's work on the street as well as pamphlets that he had written.
- In December 1792 Spence moved to London and attempted to make a living my selling Tom Paine's Rights of Man on street corners. He was arrested but soon after he was released from prison he opened a shop in Chancery Lane where he sold radical books and pamphlets.
- In 1793 he started a periodical, Pigs' Meat. He said in the first edition: "Awake! Arise! Arm yourselves with truth, justice, reason. Lay siege to corruption. Claim as your inalienable right, universal suffrage and annual parliaments. And whenever you have the gratification to choose a representative, let him be from among the lower orders of men, and he will know how to sympathize with you."
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