The nation was then violently agitated by the dispute about the Exclusion Bill.

Timid men were anticipating another civil war.

The two great parties, newly named Whigs and Tories, were fiercely contending in every county and town of England; and the feud soon spread to every corner of the civilised world where Englishmen were to be found.
The Company was popularly considered as a Whig body.

Among the members of the directing committee were some of the most vehement Exclusionists in the City.

Indeed two of them, Sir Samuel Barnardistone and Thomas Papillon, drew on themselves a severe persecution by their zeal against Popery and arbitrary power.