By this time Defoe had begun to write, and was already known as a clever author.  Now some one wrote a book accusing William among many other “crimes” of being a foreigner.  Defoe says, “this filled me with a kind of rage”; and he replied with a poem called The True-born Englishman.  It became popular at once, thousands of copies being sold in the first few months.  Every one read it from the King in his palace to the workman in his hut, and long afterwards Defoe was content to sign his books “By the author of ‘The True-born Englishman.’” It made Defoe known to the King.  “This poem,” he said, “was the occasion of my being known to his Majesty.”  He was received and employed by him and “above the capacity of my deserving, rewarded.”  He was given a small appointment in the Civil Service.  All his life after Defoe loved King William and was his staunch friend, using all the power of his clever pen to make the unloved Dutch King better understood of his people.  But when King William died and Queen Anne ruled in his stead Defoe fell on evil times.

In those days the quarrels about religion were not yet over.  There was a party in the Church which would very willingly have seen the Nonconformists or Dissenters persecuted.  Dissenters were like to have an evil time.  To show how wrong persecution was, Defoe wrote a little pamphlet which he called The Shortest Way with the Dissenters.  He wrote as if he were very angry indeed with the Dissenters.  He said they had been far too kindly treated and that if he had his way he would make a law that “whoever was found at a conventicle should be banished the nation and the preacher be hanged.  We should soon see an end of the tale—­they would all come to Church, and one age would make us all one again.”

Defoe meant this for satire.  A satire is, you remember, a work which holds up folly or wickedness to ridicule.  He meant to show the High Churchmen how absurd and wicked was their desire to punish the Dissenters for worshiping God in their own way.  He meant to make the world laugh at them.  But at first the High Churchmen did not see that it was meant to ridicule them.  They greeted the author of this pamphlet as a friend and ally.  The Dissenters did not see the satire either, and found in the writer a new and most bitter enemy.

But when at last Defoe’s meaning became plain the High Church party was very angry, and resolved to punish him.  Defoe fled into hiding.  But a reward of fifty pounds was offered for his discovery, and, “rather than others should be ruined by his mistake,” Defoe gave himself up.

For having written “a scandalous and seditious pamphlet” Defoe was condemned to pay a large fine, to stand three times in the pillory, and to be imprisoned during the Queen’s pleasure.  Thus quickly did Fortune’s wheel turn round.  “I have seen the rough side of the world as well as the smooth,” he said long after.  “I have, in less than half a year, tasted the difference between the closet of a King, and the dungeon of Newgate.”