to the clear and stirring title of—­The Two Great questions considered.  I. What the French King will do with respect to the Spanish Monarchy. II. What measures the English ought to take. If the French King were wise, he argued, he would reject the dangerous gift for his grandson.  But if he accepted it, England had no choice but to combine with her late allies the Emperor and the States, and compel the Duke of Anjou to withdraw his claims.  This pamphlet being virulently attacked, and its author accused of bidding for a place at Court, Defoe made a spirited rejoinder, and seized the occasion to place his arguments in still clearer light.  Between them the two pamphlets are a masterly exposition, from the point of view of English interests, of the danger of permitting the Will to be fulfilled.  He tears the arguments of his opponents to pieces with supreme scorn.  What matters it to us who is King of Spain? asks one adversary.  As well ask, retorts Defoe, what it matters to us who is King of Ireland.  All this talk about the Balance of Power, says another, is only “a shoeing-horn to draw on a standing army.”  We do not want an army; only let us make our fleet strong enough and we may defy the world; our militia is perfectly able to defend us against invasion.  If our militia is so strong, is Defoe’s reply, why should a standing-army make us fear for our domestic liberties?  But if you object to a standing-army in England, avert the danger by subsidising allies and raising and paying troops in Germany and the Low Countries.  Even if we are capable of beating off invasion, it is always wise policy to keep the war out of our own country, and not trust to such miracles as the dispersion of the Armada.  In war, Defoe says, repeating a favourite axiom of his, “it is not the longest sword but the longest purse that conquers,” and if the French get the Spanish crown, they get the richest trade in the world into their hands.  The French would prove better husbands of the wealth of Mexico and Peru than the Spaniards.  They would build fleets with it, which would place our American plantations at their mercy.  Our own trade with Spain, one of the most profitable fields of our enterprise, would at once be ruined.  Our Mediterranean trade would be burdened with the impost of a toll at Gibraltar.  In short Defoe contended, if the French acquired the upper hand in Spain, nothing but a miracle could save England from becoming practically a French province.

Defoe’s appeal to the sense of self-interest fell, however, upon deaf ears.  No eloquence or ingenuity of argument could have availed to stem the strong current of growling prepossession.  He was equally unsuccessful in his attempt to touch deeper feelings by exhibiting in a pamphlet, which is perhaps the ablest of the series, The danger of the Protestant Religion, from the present prospect of a Religious War in Europe.  “Surely you cannot object to a standing army for the defence of your religion?”