* * * * *

“I am not the first,” Defoe said in another place, “that has been stoned for saying the truth.  I cannot but think that as time and the conviction of their senses will restore men to love the peace now established in this nation, so they will gradually see I have acted no part but that of a lover of my country, and an honest man.”

Time has undeniably shown that in these efforts to promote party peace and national union Defoe acted like a lover of his country, and that his aims were the aims of a statesmanlike as well as an honest man.  And yet his protestations of independence and spontaneity of action, with all their ring of truth and all their solemnity of asseveration, were merely diplomatic blinds.  He was all the time, as he afterwards admitted, when the admission could do no harm except to his own passing veracity, acting as the agent of Harley, and in enjoyment of an “appointment” from the Queen.  What exactly the nature of his secret services in Scotland and elsewhere were, he very properly refused to reveal.  His business probably was to ascertain and report the opinions of influential persons, and keep the Government informed as far as he could of the general state of feeling.  At any rate it was not as he alleged, mere curiosity, or the fear of his creditors, or private enterprise, or pure and simple patriotic zeal that took Defoe to Scotland.  The use he made of his debts as diplomatic instruments is curious.  He not merely practised his faculties in the management of his creditors, which one of Lord Beaconsfield’s characters commends as an incomparable means to a sound knowledge of human nature; but he made his debts actual pieces in his political game.  His poverty, apparent, if not real, served as a screen for his employment under Government.  When he was despatched on secret missions, he could depart wiping his eyes at the hardship of having to flee from his creditors.

CHAPTER VI.

DR. SACHEVERELL, AND THE CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT.

Some of Defoe’s biographers have claimed for him that he anticipated the doctrines of Free Trade.  This is an error.  It is true that Defoe was never tired of insisting, in pamphlets, books, and number after number of the Review, on the all-importance of trade to the nation.  Trade was the foundation of England’s greatness; success in trade was the most honourable patent of nobility; next to the maintenance of the Protestant religion, the encouragement of trade should be the chief care of English statesmen.  On these heads Defoe’s enthusiasm was boundless, and his eloquence inexhaustible.  It is true also that he supported with all his might the commercial clauses of the Treaty of Utrecht, which sought to abolish the prohibitory duties on our trade with France.  It is this last circumstance which has earned for him the repute of being a pioneer of Free Trade.