“It is not the blow I received from a wicked, perjured, and contemptible enemy that has broken in upon my spirit; which, as she well knows, has carried me on through greater disasters than these.  But it has been the injustice, unkindness, and, I must say inhuman, dealing of my own son, which has both ruined my family, and in a word has broken my heart....  I depended upon him, I trusted him, I gave up my two dear unprovided children into his hands; but he has no compassion, but suffers them and their poor dying mother to beg their bread at his door, and to crave, as it were an alms, what he is bound under hand and seal, besides the most sacred promises, to supply them with, himself at the same time living in a profusion of plenty.  It is too much for me.  Excuse my infirmity, I can say no more; my heart is too full.  I only ask one thing of you as a dying request.  Stand by them when I am gone, and let them not be wronged while he is able to do them right.  Stand by them as a brother; and if you have anything within you owing to my memory, who have bestowed on you the best gift I have to give, let them not be injured and trampled on by false pretences and unnatural reflections.  I hope they will want no help but that of comfort and council; but that they will indeed want, being too easy to be managed by words and promises.”

The postscript to the letter shows that Baker had written to him about selling the house, which, it may be remembered, was the security for Mrs. Baker’s portion, and had inquired about a policy of assurance.  “I wrote you a letter some months ago, in answer to one from you, about selling the house; but you never signified to me whether you received it.  I have not the policy of assurance; I suppose my wife, or Hannah, may have it.”  Baker’s ignoring the previous letter about the house seems to signify that it was unsatisfactory.  He apparently wished for a personal interview with Defoe.  In the beginning of the present letter Defoe had said that, though far from debarring a visit from his son-in-law, circumstances, much to his sorrow, made it impossible that he could receive a visit from anybody.  After the charge against his son, which we have quoted, he goes on to explain that it is impossible for him to go to see Mr. Baker.  His family apparently had been ignorant of his movements for some time.  “I am at a distance from London, in Kent; nor have I a lodging in London, nor have I been at that place in the Old Bailey since I wrote you I was removed from it.  At present I am weak, having had some fits of a fever that have left me low.”  He suggests, indeed, a plan by which he might see his son-in-law and daughter.  He could not bear to make them a single flying visit.  “Just to come and look at you and retire immediately, ’tis a burden too heavy.  The parting will be a price beyond the enjoyment.”  But if they could find a retired lodging for him at Enfield, “where he might not be known, and might have the comfort