The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of John Bull, by John Arbuthnot

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Title: The History of John Bull

Author: John Arbuthnot

Commentator: Henry Morley

Posting Date: December 22, 2008 [EBook #2643]
Release Date: May, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF JOHN BULL ***

Produced by Les Bowler

THE HISTORY OF JOHN BULL

By John Arbuthnot, M.D.

INTRODUCTION BY HENRY MORLEY.

This is the book which fixed the name and character of John Bull on
the English people. Though in one part of the story he is thin and long
nosed, as a result of trouble, generally he is suggested to us as "ruddy
and plump, with a pair of cheeks like a trumpeter," an honest tradesman,
simple and straightforward, easily cheated; but when he takes his
affairs into his own hands, acting with good plain sense, knowing very
well what he wants done, and doing it.

The book was begun in the year 1712, and published in four successive
groups of chapters that dealt playfully, from the Tory point of view,
with public affairs leading up to the Peace of Utrecht. The Peace urged
and made by the Tories was in these light papers recommended to the
public. The last touches in the parable refer to the beginning of the
year 1713, when the Duke of Ormond separated his troops from those of
the Allies and went to receive Dunkirk as the stipulated condition of
cessation of arms. After the withdrawal of the British troops, Prince
Eugene was defeated by Marshal Villars at Denain, and other reverses
followed. The Peace of Utrecht was signed on the 31st of March.

Some chapters in this book deal in like manner, from the point of view
of a good-natured Tory of Queen Anne's time, with the feuds of the
day between Church and Dissent. Other chapters unite with this topic
a playful account of another chief political event of the time--the
negotiation leading to the Act of Union between England and Scotland,
which received the Royal Assent on the 6th of March, 1707; John Bull
then consented to receive his "Sister Peg" into his house. The Church,
of course, is John Bull's mother; his first wife is a Whig Parliament,