Note xviii — THE ART of POLITICKS, In Imitation of HORACE's ART of POETRY.

line 12. The "Kentish Petition" was presented to the Tory-controlled Parliament on 8 May 1701 by five gentlemen of Kent. It urged Parliament to grant speedily to King William the subsidies that would enable him to pursue his European wars against Louis XIV. Parliament did not consider its words soft; it voted the petition seditious, scandalous, and insolent, and arrested the five gentlemen, who thereupon became popular heroes, at least among the Whigs. See Defoe's History of the Kentish Petition (1701) and Ellis, pp. 53-56, 65-66.