chapter 6 (volume 1).

CLUBS: The Brothers'.

In 1711, a political club which took this name was founded in London by Henry St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, to counteract the "extravagance of the Kit Cat" and "the drunkenness of the Beefsteak." "This society ... continued for some time to restrain the outburst of those elements of disunion with which the Harley ministry was so rife. To be a member of this club was esteemed a distinguished honour. They addressed each other as 'brother'; and we find their ladies in their correspondence claiming to be enrolled as sisters. The members of this club were the Dukes of Ormond, Shrewsbury, Beaufort; the Earls of Oxford, Arran, Jersey, Orrery, Bathurst; Lords Harley, Duplin, Masham; Sir Robert Raymond, Sir William Windham, Colonel Hill, Colonel Desney, St. John, Granville, Arbuthnot, Prior, Swift, and Friend."

_G. W. Cooke, Memoirs of Bolingbroke,