Craftsman, The: or, The Countryman's Journal

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Craftsman, The: or, The Countryman's Journal. Best-selling newspaper which, from 5 December 1726, spearheaded the opposition to Sir Robert Walpole. Backed by Bolingbroke and William Pulteney, and edited by Nicholas Amhurst under the pseudonym ‘Caleb D'Anvers of Gray's-Inn, Esq.’, the paper's avowed aim was to expose political craft. ‘Country’ rhetoric was employed in the attempt to create a political platform strong enough to accommodate the opinions of Tories and dissident Whigs. Bolingbroke was himself a principal contributor, his Dissertations on Parties and Remarks on the History of England both being reprinted from a series of essays originally published in The Craftsman.

J. A. Downie