apparent, and the High Church party,
indignant that they should have been the
victims of such a hoax, clamoured lustily
for the author's punishment. The Tory
government of the day no sooner discovered
that its grave irony was to be taken in a
contrary sense, from that in which it
appeared to be written, than they resolved to
crush the author, if possible, by a State
prosecution. Defoe fled, and the government
advertised him in the London Gazette
of the 10th of January, 1703, offering a
reward of thirty pounds for his apprehension.
He was described as "a middle
sized, spare man, about forty years old, of
a brown complexion, and dark brown
coloured hair – but wearing a wig," and as
having "a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey
eyes, and a large mole near his mouth."
Defoe lay in hiding for some time, to the
serious injury of his business  but
ultimately surrendered to take his trial, with
the hope that no punishment would be
inflicted upon him, for a piece of political
irony. In this hope, as will appear hereafter,
he was grievously disappointed; and
the pantile works, in the absence of their
directing head, had to be closed and the
manufacture discontinued. In this venture
Defoe lost, or became responsible for, about
three thousand five hundred pounds.

After this collapse, trade and commerce
knew the brave man no more. He had long
ago discovered his true vocation, and
henceforth he determined to make it his only
one. Trade, as he knew to his cost, required a
constant and unfaltering allegiance, if the
trader were not to flounder into bankruptcy;
and such allegiance it was impossible
for him to bestow. For the future his
pen became his main if not his sole
reliance for his daily bread and the support of
his family. Here let us take leave of him
in his character of a tradesman: with the
sole remark, that if he were unfortunate,
he was never dishonest. He failed, it is true;
but without a stain upon his integrity,
and in the case of the brick and pantile
manufactory, his ruin was the work of his
political enemies, and not in any degree of
his own commercial mismanagement. And
furthermore it must be recorded to his
honour, that not only his brick and pantile
debts, but every other debt contracted in
his commercial life, was discharged to the
uttermost farthing – before the strong soul
shuffled off this mortal coil, and rested in
peace from its manifold labours.

Had he lived in our day, Defoe would
most probably have been the editor of some
great daily or weekly newspaper, or the
writer of its most powerful leading articles.
In his day, to a great extent, the pamphlet
performed the functions of the newspaper;
and as a pamphleteer he occupied the very
first rank among his contemporaries. From
the Revolution of 1688 to the accession of
George the First, his pen was never idle.
Unavowedly and unknown, he was equally
busy through the whole reign of George
the First, and a portion of that of George
the Second. During all this time he
employed himself on every subject, no matter
what, that interested the crown, the
parliament, or the people. In attack or in defence,
in solemn earnest, or in grave and
sometimes grim banter, he was always
powerful, and always just. And it was known of
him in his own day, as is remembered to his
honour in ours, that he never attacked the
weak and the defenceless. "From being
a boxing English boy," as he said of himself
in an autobiographical passage in his
Review, "I learned this early piece of
generosity, not to hit my enemy when he
is down."

Defoe wrote many pamphlets and papers
in support of the principles of which King
William was the representative and the
defender, and soon became known, at least by
name, to that monarch, as one of the
staunchest supporters of his throne against
the reactionary Jacobites. The services
thus rendered, recommended him to the
government as a powerful writer who
ought both to be encouraged and employed,
and in the year 1694, as he himself states,
he was, without the least application on his
own part, appointed accountant to the
commissioners for the glass duty, in which
service he continued till the glass duty was
abolished in 1699. This employment, while
it lasted, never interfered with his literary
work. On the first of August, 1700, there
appeared what Defoe called "a vile abhorred
pamphlet, in very ill verse, written by one
Mr. Turchin, and called The Foreigners; in
which the author (who he was I then knew
not) fell personally upon the king himself,
and then upon the Dutch nation. And
after having reproached his majesty with
crimes that his worst enemies could not
think of without horror, he sums up all in
the odious name of a Foreigner. This filled
me with a kind of rage against the book,
and gave birth to a trifle which I never
could hope should have met with so general
an acceptance as it did: I mean The True
Born Englishman." This work, was the
first, known to be by Defoe, which achieved
great popularity. It took the town by storm,
and not only ran rapidly through several