Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/291

 ing prominent in the political world. In August or September 1706 Defoe was sent to Edinburgh by the ministry, kissing the queen's hand on his appointment. His duties were apparently to act as a secret agent with the party favourable to the union. He published six essays ‘towards removing national prejudices’ against the measure both in England and Scotland, and exerted himself vigorously for an object which was thoroughly congenial to his sympathies. His ‘History of the Union’ ultimately appeared in 1709, and contains some useful historical documents. He was consulted by committees upon many questions of trade, and was once in some danger from a hostile mob. His absence in Scotland was partly due to the demands of creditors, who still persecuted him, after he had surrendered to the commissioners appointed for the relief of debtors under an act of 1706 (see letters to Fransham of this period in Notes and Queries, 5th ser. iii. 261, 282). He stayed in Scotland throughout 1707, replying with spirit to various attacks upon his supposed dependence on the ministry, which he denied at the cost of some equivocation. In the beginning of 1708 he returned to England. A settlement with his creditors seemed possible, and his political position was again doubtful. His patron, Harley, was now ejected from the ministry, being at deadly feud with Godolphin and Marlborough. Defoe, by his own account, was allowed by Harley himself ‘in the most engaging terms’ to offer his services to Godolphin. Substantially, of course, this was to treat Defoe as a mere hireling or ‘under-spur-leather’ in the cant phrase of the time, instead of an ally who would have a claim upon future support if asked to resign with his employer. Defoe went to Godolphin and boasts that he had no correspondence with Harley for the next three years. Godolphin received him civilly; he again kissed the queen's hand in confirmation of an appointment, previously made through Harley ‘in consideration of a special service … in which I had run as much risk of my life as a grenadier upon a counterscarp.’ He was again sent to Scotland, then threatened by the invasion of 1708, and, after visiting England during the elections, returned for another mission in the summer. The ‘Review’ was at this time printed in Edinburgh as well as in London, and he had at one time thoughts of settling in Scotland altogether (, i. 139). Some letters to Godolphin and Sunderland, written from Edinburgh in May and August 1708, printed by the ‘Historical MSS. Commission’ (8th Rep. pp. 44, 48), show Defoe's complete dependence on the government. A letter to Harley of 2 Nov. 1706 (9th Rep. p. 469) suggests that his plan of settling in Scotland was a mere pretence.

The ‘Review’ was now staunchly whig, and during the elections of 1708 Defoe declared that if we ever had a tory parliament the nation would be undone (Review, v. 139). He supported Marlborough and Godolphin against the growing discontent with the war. Sacheverell's famous sermon (5 Nov. 1709) gave him an opportunity for attacking an old enemy, who had already hung out ‘a bloody flag and banner of defiance’ against the dissenters (a phrase frequently quoted by Defoe and others at the time) in a sermon of 1702. Defoe first declared that Sacheverell's violence should be encouraged rather than suppressed, as the serious acceptance by high churchmen of the ironical arguments of the ‘Shortest Way’ would most effectually expose the high church spirit (ib. vi. 421). The impeachment, however, was carried out, and was then supported by Defoe. He attacked Sacheverell's principles in the ‘Review,’ while disavowing any personal motive, and so vigorously that, as he says, he was threatened with assassination. The fall of the whigs followed. Defoe supported them, and eulogised Sunderland, the most violent of the party, on his dismissal (ib. vii. 142, 145). When Godolphin was at last dismissed, Defoe, as he puts it, was ‘providentially cast back upon his original benefactor,’ Harley. In other words, he was handed back again to his old employer as a mere hanger-on of the office. The spirit of the ‘Review’ changed abruptly, though Defoe taxed all his ingenuity to veil the change under an air of impartiality. The whig argument, that credit would be injured by the expulsion of Godolphin, had been urged in the ‘Review.’ Defoe had now to prove that all patriots were bound to support the national credit even under a tory ministry. In August and October 1710 he published two essays upon ‘Public Credit’ and ‘Loans,’ arguing that whigs would be playing the game of the Jacobites by selling out of the funds. These pamphlets were so clearly in Harley's interest that they have been attributed to him (, i. 171). Defoe denied that the ministry would favour the ‘high-flyers,’ and tried hard to prove that, if not whigs already, they would be forced into whiggism by the necessity of their position (Review, vii. 245). He received, as he tells us (ib. 257), scurrilous letters calling him a renegade, which is hardly surprising. He urged the election of a ‘moderate’ parliament (ib. 348), as he had previously urged the election of a whig parliament. He became awake to the terrible expensiveness of the war. He declared (truly enough) that