The services on which Defoe was employed were, as before, of two kinds, active and literary.  Shortly after the change in the Ministry early in 1708, news came of the gathering of the French expedition at Dunkirk, with a view, it was suspected, of trying to effect a landing in Scotland.  Defoe was at once despatched to Edinburgh on an errand which, he says, was “far from being unfit for a sovereign to direct or an honest man to perform.”  If his duties were to mix with the people and ascertain the state of public feeling, and more specifically to sound suspected characters, to act, in short, as a political detective or spy, the service was one which it was essential that the Government should get some trustworthy person to undertake, and which any man at such a crisis might perform, if he could, without any discredit to his honesty or his patriotism.  The independence of the sea-girt realm was never in greater peril.  The French expedition was a well-conceived diversion, and it was imperative that the Government should know on what amount of support the invaders might rely in the bitterness prevailing in Scotland after the Union.  Fortunately the loyalty of the Scotch Jacobites was not put to the test.  As in the case of the Spanish Armada, accident fought on our side.  The French fleet succeeded in reaching the coast of Scotland before the ships of the defenders; but it overshot its arranged landing-point, and had no hope but to sail back ingloriously to Dunkirk.  Meantime, Defoe had satisfactorily discharged himself of his mission.  Godolphin showed his appreciation of his services by recalling him as soon as Parliament was dissolved, to travel through the counties and serve the cause of the Government in the general elections.  He was frequently sent to Scotland again on similarly secret errands, and seems to have established a printing business there, made arrangements for the simultaneous issue of the Review in Edinburgh and London, besides organizing Edinburgh newspapers, executing commissions for English merchants, and setting on foot a linen manufactory.

But we are more concerned with the literary labors of this versatile and indefatigable genius.  These, in the midst of his multifarious commercial and diplomatic concerns, he never intermitted.  All the time the Review continued to give a brilliant support to the Ministry.  The French expedition had lent a new interest to the affairs of Scotland, and Defoe advertised, that though he never intended to make the Review a newspaper, circumstances enabled him to furnish exceptionally correct intelligence from Scotland as well as sound impartial opinions.  The intelligence which he communicated was all with a purpose, and a good purpose—­the promotion of a better understanding between the united nations.  He never had a better opportunity for preaching from his favourite text of Peace and Union, and he used it characteristically, championing the cause of the