Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 3, 2025
The country-party consisted of the tories, reinforced by discontented whigs, who had either been disappointed in their own ambitious views, or felt for the distresses of their country, occasioned by a weak and worthless administration.
Liberty of thinking and of expressing our thoughts is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds on which it is commonly founded.... Hence it must happen in such a government as that of Britain, that the established clergy, while things are in their natural situation, will always be of the Court-party; as, on the contrary, dissenters of all kinds will be of the Country-party. Hume's Essays, Part 1, No. viii.
Names began to be flung about: the court-party called the other the party of Whigs, because of their whey faces that would turn all sour; and the country-party nicknamed the others Tories, which was the name of the banditti in the wilder parts of Ireland. So it appeared that whenever Parliament should meet, there would be, as the saying is, a pretty kettle of fish to fry.
His Majesty answered this by proclaiming through the magistrates that such addresses were contrary to the laws that left such things at the King's discretion; and the court-party against the country-party presently begun to send addresses beseeching His Majesty to defend that prerogative of his fearlessly.
Presently His Majesty came out by his private way, laughing and jesting aloud with two or three others. It was to be expected that the country-party would make some retort to this; and what that retort was I heard a few days later, from a couple of gentlemen who came into the parlour at the Covent Garden tavern where I was taking my supper.
And, if they try my Lord, they will certainly condemn him. There is no question of that. To acquit him would cause a yet greater uproar than to refuse to hear the case at all." "And His Majesty?" Mr. Chiffinch eyed me gravely. "His Majesty will never prefer his private feelings before the public utility." "And this is to the public utility?" "Why yes; or the country-party thinks it is.
The rest of his letter was, two-thirds of it all about Hare Street and the lambs and how the fruit promised; and one-third of the affairs of the kingdom. These affairs, of which I learned from other sources besides my Cousin Tom, were, in brief, as follows. His Majesty, for the first time, since he had come to the throne, had shewn an extraordinary open courage in dealing with the country-party.
"If I knew their names," said the page, "I could put my hands on them on some excuse or other. But I do not know. It is the dregs of the old country-party no doubt." "And what good do they think to get out of me?" "Why, it is revenge no doubt," he said. "They know that you are down with the king and have not many friends; and they suspect that you are still in with the secret service, no doubt."
Yet it did not sound to me very like work for a gentleman to feign to be a conspirator to win confidence and then to betray it, in however a good cause. What astonished me most however was the thought that the country-party had waxed as desperate as this. Certainly their tide was going down as I had heard in France; but I did not know it was gone so low as this.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking