He was a warm supporter of William III.; and his famous poem, The True-Born Englishman, was written in answer to an attack upon the king and the Dutch, called The Foreigners.  Of his own poem he says, in the preface, “When I see the town full of lampoons and invectives against the Dutch, only because they are foreigners, and the king reproached and insulted by insolent pedants and ballad-making poets for employing foreigners and being a foreigner himself, I confess myself moved by it to remind our nation of their own original, thereby to let them see what a banter they put upon themselves, since—­speaking of Englishmen ab origine—­we are really all foreigners ourselves:” 

    The Pict and painted Briton, treach’rous Scot,
    By hunger, theft, and rapine hither brought;
    Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes,
    Whose red-haired offspring everywhere remains;
    Who, joined with Norman-French, compound the breed
    From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed.

In 1702, just after the death of King William, Defoe published his severely ironical pamphlet, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters.  Assuming the character of a High Churchman, he says:  “’Tis vain to trifle in the matter.  The light, foolish handling of them by fines is their glory and advantage.  If the gallows instead of the compter, and the galleys instead of the fines, were the reward of going to a conventicle, there would not be so many sufferers.”  His irony was at first misunderstood:  the High Churchmen hailed him as a champion, and the Dissenters hated him as an enemy.  But when his true meaning became apparent, a reward of L50 was offered by the government for his discovery.  His so-called “scandalous and seditious pamphlet” was burnt by the common hangman:  he was tried, and sentenced to pay two hundred marks, to stand three times in the pillory, and to be imprisoned during the queen’s pleasure.  He bore his sentence bravely, and during his two years’ residence in prison he published a periodical called The Review.  In 1709 he wrote a History of the Union between England and Scotland.

ROBINSON CRUSOE.—­But none of these things, nor all combined, would have given to Defoe that immortality which is his as the author of Robinson Crusoe.  Of the groundwork of the story not much need be said.

Alexander Selkirk, the sailing-master of an English privateer, was set ashore, in 1704, at his own request, on the uninhabited island Juan Fernandez, which lies several hundred miles from the coast of Chili, in the Pacific Ocean.  He was supplied with clothing and arms, and remained there alone for four years and four months.  It is supposed that his adventures suggested the work.  It is also likely that Defoe had read the journal of Peter Serrano, who, in the sixteenth century, had been marooned in like manner on a desolate island lying off the mouth of the Oroonoque (Orinoco).  The latter locality