Jonathan Swift had moved to London in 1710.

He and Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford (who was at that time the secretary of the treasury and not a peer) had produced the Tory periodical The Examiner, and John Arbuthnot, having made their acquaintance, had begun to provide "hints" to them.

These "hints" are ideas for essays, satirical gambits, and facts, rather than secrets of any sort.

Arbuthnot and Swift from 1711 to 1713 form "The Brothers' Club," though Arbuthnot characteristically gives away his ideas and even his writings, never seeking credit for them.

Alexander Pope on August 14, 1712, outlines his project for a satirical periodical, The Works of the Unlearned; from this develops the Scriblerus Club, whose members include Pope, Jonathan Swift, John Gay, Thomas Parnell, Robert Harley, Henry St. John and Dr. John Arbuthnot (at whose house they meet).

Arbuthnot and Swift both attempt in 1712, to aid the Tory government of Harley and Henry St. John in their efforts to end the War of the Spanish Succession.

The war has profited John and Sarah Churchill, and the Tory ministry seeks to end it by withdrawing from all England's alliances and negotiating directly with France.

Swift writes The Conduct of the Allies, and Arbuthnot writes a series of five pamphlets featuring John Bull.

The first of these, Law Is a Bottomless Pit (1712), introduces a simple allegory to explain the war.

John Bull (England) is suing Louis Baboon (i.e., Louis Bourbon, or Louis XIV of France) over the estate of the dead Lord Strutt (Charles II of Spain).

Bull's lawyer is the one who really enjoys the suit, and he is Humphrey Hocus (Marlborough).

Bull has a sister named Peg (Scotland).

The pamphlets are Swiftian in their satire, in that they make all of the characters hopelessly flawed and comic and none of their endeavor worth pursuing (which is Arbuthnot's intent, as he seeks to make the war an object of scorn), but it is filled with homespun humor, a common touch, and a sympathy for the figures that is distinctly unSwiftian.