Those who held uncourtly opinions could express those opinions without resorting to illegal expedients and employing the agency of desperate men.

The consequence was that the dispute was carried on, though with sufficient keenness, yet, on the whole, with a decency which would have been thought extraordinary in the days of the censorship.
On this occasion the Tories, though they felt strongly, wrote but little.

The paper war was almost entirely carried on between two sections of the Whig party.

The combatants on both sides were generally anonymous.

But it was well known that one of the foremost champions of the malecontent Whigs was John Trenchard, son of the late Secretary of State.