It was the misfortune of the ministers, that while they were baited by their professed adversaries of the discontented faction, acting in confederacy with emissaries of foreign powers, to break the measures Her Majesty had taken towards a peace, they met at the same time with frequent difficulties from those who agreed and engaged with them to pursue the same general end; but sometimes disapproved the methods as too slack and remiss, or, in appearance, now and then perhaps a little dubious. In the first session of this Parliament, a considerable number of gentlemen, all members of the House of Commons, began to meet by themselves, and consult what course they ought to steer in this new world. They intended to revive a new country party in Parliament, which might, as in former times, oppose the court in any proceedings they disliked. The whole body was of such who profess what is commonly called high-church principles, upon which account they were irreconcilable enemies to the late ministry and all its adherents. On the other side, considering the temper of the new men in power, that they were persons who had formerly moved between the two extremes, those gentlemen, who were impatient for an entire change, and to see all their adversaries laid at once as low as the dust, began to be apprehensive that the work would be done by halves. But the juncture of affairs at that time, both at home and abroad, would by no means admit of the least precipitation, although the Queen and her first minister had been disposed to it, which certainly they were not. Neither did the court seem at all uneasy at this league, formed in appearance against it, but composed of honest gentlemen who wished well to their country, in which both were entirely agreed, although they might differ about the means; or if such a society should begin to grow resty, nothing was easier than to divide them, and render all their endeavours ineffectual.[33] [Footnote 33: See Swift's "Advice to Members of the October Club," vol. v., pp. 207-225. [W.S.J.]]