Some time after the Revolution the distinction of high and low-church came in, which was raised by the Dissenters, in order to break the Church party, by dividing the members into high and low; and the opinions raised, that the high joined with the Papists, inclined the low to fall in with the Dissenters.

And here I shall take leave to produce some principles, which in the several periods of the late reign, served to denote a man of one or the other party.  To be against a standing army in time of peace, was all high-church, Tory and Tantivy.[9] To differ from a majority of b[isho]ps was the same.  To raise the prerogative above law for serving a turn, was low-church and Whig.  The opinion of the majority in the House of Commons, especially of the country-party or landed interest, was high-flying[10] and rank Tory.  To exalt the king’s supremacy beyond all precedent, was low-church, Whiggish and moderate.  To make the least doubt of the pretended prince being supposititious, and a tiler’s son, was, in their phrase, “top and topgallant,” and perfect Jacobitism.  To resume the most exorbitant grants, that were ever given to a set of profligate favourites, and apply them to the public, was the very quintessence of Toryism; notwithstanding those grants were known to be acquired, by sacrificing the honour and the wealth of England.

In most of these principles, the two parties seem to have shifted opinions, since their institution under King Charles the Second, and indeed to have gone very different from what was expected from each, even at the time of the Revolution.  But as to that concerning the Pretender, the Whigs have so far renounced it, that they are grown the great advocates for his legitimacy:  which gives me the opportunity of vindicating a noble d[uke] who was accused of a blunder in the House, when upon a certain lord’s mentioning the pretended Prince, his g[race] told the lords, he “must be plain with them, and call that person, not the pretended prince, but the pretended impostor:”  which was so far from a blunder in that polite l[or]d, as his ill-willers give out, that it was only a refined way of delivering the avowed sentiments of his whole party.

But to return, this was the state of principles when the Qu[een] came to the crown; some time after which, it pleased certain great persons, who had been all their lives in the altitude of Tory-profession, to enter into a treaty with the Whigs, from whom they could get better terms than from their old friends, who began to be resty, and would not allow monopolies of power and favour; nor consent to carry on the war entirely at the expense of this nation, that they might have pensions from abroad; while another people, more immediately concerned in the war, traded with the enemy as in times of peace.  Whereas, the other party, whose case appeared then as desperate, was ready to yield to any conditions that would bring them into play.  And I cannot help affirming, that this nation was made a sacrifice to the immeasurable appetite of power and wealth in a very few, that shall be nameless, who in every step they made, acted directly against what they had always professed.  And if his Royal Highness the Prince[11] had died some years sooner (who was a perpetual check in their career) it is dreadful to think how far they might have proceeded.