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The domestic history of England during the reign of Anne, is that of the great struggles between Whig and Tory; and Earl Stanhope, in his History of England, thus points out a number of precisely parallel lines of policy, and instances of unscrupulous resort to the same censurable set of weapons of party warfare, in the Tories of the reign of Queen Anne and the Whigs of the reign of William IV.

“At that period the two great contending parties were distinguished, as at present, by the nicknames of Whig and Tory. But it is very remarkable that in Queen Anne’s reign the relative meaning of these terms was not only different but opposite to that which they bore at the accession of William IV. In theory, indeed, the main principle of each continues the same. The leading principle of the Tories is the dread of popular licentiousness. The leading principle of the Whigs is the dread of royal encroachment. It may thence, perhaps, be deduced that good and wise men would attach themselves either to the Whig or to the Tory party, according as there seemed to be the greater danger at that particular period from despotism or from democracy. The same person who would have been a Whig in 1712 would have been a Tory in 1830. For, on examination, it will be found that, in nearly all particulars, a modern Tory resembles a Whig of Queen Anne’s reign, and a Tory of Queen Anne’s reign a modern Whig.

“First, as to the Tories. The Tories of Queen Anne’s reign pursued a most unceasing opposition to a just and glorious war against France. They treated the great General of the age as their peculiar adversary. To our recent enemies, the French, their policy was supple and crouching. They had an indifference, or even an aversion, to our old allies the Dutch. They had a political leaning towards the Roman Catholics at home. They were supported by the Roman Catholics in their elections. They had a love of triennial parliaments in preference to septennial. They attempted to abolish the protecting duties and restrictions of commerce. They wished to favour our trade with France at the expense of our trade with Portugal. They were supported by a faction whose war-cry was ‘Repeal of the Union,’ in a sister kingdom. To serve a temporary purpose in the House of Lords, they had recourse (for the first time in our annals) to a large and overwhelming creation of peers. Like the Whigs in May, 1831, they chose the moment of the highest popular passion and excitement to dissolve the House of Commons, hoping to avail themselves of a short-lived cry for the purpose of permanent delusion. The Whigs of Queen Anne’s time, on the other hand, supported that splendid war which led to such victories as Ramillies and Blenheim. They had for a leader the great man who gained those victories. They advocated the old principles of trade. They prolonged the duration of parliaments. They took their stand on the principles of the Revolution of 1688. They raised the cry of ‘No Popery.’ They loudly inveighed against the subserviency to France, the desertion of our old allies, the outrage wrought upon the peers, the deceptions practised upon the sovereign, and the other measures of the Tory administration.

“Such were the Tories and such were the Whigs of Queen Anne. Can it be doubted that, at the accession of William IV., Harley and St. John would have been called Whigs; Somers and Stanhope, Tories? Would not the October Club have loudly cheered the measures of Lord Grey, and the Kit-Cat find itself renewed in the Carlton?”

The defence of the Whigs against these imputations seems to be founded upon the famous Jesuitical principle, that the end justifies the means. They do not deny the facts, but they assert, that while the Tories of 1713 resorted to such modes of furthering the interests of arbitrary power, they have employed them in advancing the progress and securing the ascendancy of the democracy.