_Citt and Bumpkin_ was not only the best written pamphlet on petitioning, it was also the most ambitious in scope. Arranging his material artfully, L'Estrange presented it with the wit and skill that demonstrate unequivocably his mastery of the polemic medium. Unlike most other party writers who confined their efforts to a few folio pages, L'Estrange sustained his performance through 38 quarto leaves of readable, entertaining prose. Moreover, his objectives and arguments were much more comprehensive and sophisticated than those of the other pamphleteers engaged in the controversy over petitioning. Most Tory writers treated petitioning as an isolated issue and directed their attack accordingly, failing to relate any of their arguments to each other or to a larger scheme. Many authors attempted to defeat petitioning by identifying the petitions of 1680 with those of the 1640's leading up to the Civil War. In addition, some insisted that petitioning was illegal and defended the Proclamation against it, while others tried to discredit the organizers and promoters of petitions as disaffected persons motivated by hopes of preferment and profit. At the same time, they launched a collateral attack upon those members of Parliament who actively encouraged petitioning. There was even a general indictment of Parliament as a whole, suggesting that it intended to usurp the King's prerogatives and take sovereignty upon itself. But there was no definite, direct statement that a plot led by the petition managers was actually underway to subvert the government. In _Citt and Bumpkin_ L'Estrange accused the republicans and Dissenters of actively promoting a Protestant Plot more insidious than the Popish Plot but with identical goals: 1) to kill the King, 2) to undermine the government, and 3) to destroy the established Church of England. Throughout the pamphlet, which is an _exposé_ of this alleged conspiracy, L'Estrange supplied a great deal of specific factual detail upholding his claims. His objective was not merely to discredit petitioning, but to lessen belief in the Popish Plot and to launch a counterattack against the enemies of the Court. By indicating that petitioning was not an end in itself but an integral part of a larger plan, L'Estrange managed to censure petitioning _per se_, to increase its odium by linking it with the greater disaster of rebellion and civil war, and yet to preserve a sense of proportion by directing the brunt of his attack against the Protestant Plot as a whole.