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