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 have been the father of a second wife. He apparently had some permanent connection with Newington. Henry Baker, F.R.S. [q. v.], who became his son-in-law, made his acquaintance in 1724. Defoe, as Baker tells us, had then newly built a ‘very handsome house’ at Stoke Newington (, History of Stoke Newington). It was surrounded by four acres of ground; it had a coachhouse and stables, and Defoe amused himself with his garden, and ‘in the pursuit of his studies, which he found means of making very profitable.’ He had three lovely daughters, and his ‘way of living’ was ‘very genteel.’ He had probably a fair income, though he had not much realised estate. He paid 10l. in 1721 to be excused from serving a parish office. Some transactions, fully detailed by Mr. Lee from the original deeds (, i. 361–364), show that in 1722 he invested about 1,000l. in an estate called Kingswood Heath, at Colchester, for the benefit of his daughter Hannah. An advertisement in the ‘Daily Courant’ of 15 March 1726, for some documents lost in a pocket-book, shows that Defoe was then engaged in commercial transactions, probably as an agent for the sale of cloth. When Baker proposed to marry his daughter, Defoe had some difficulty in providing ready money for the settlements, but ultimately gave sufficient securities.

Baker began a paper called the ‘Universal Spectator,’ of which Defoe wrote the first number (12 Oct. 1728), and on 30 April 1729 married the daughter, Sophia Defoe. Some catastrophe which must have happened soon afterwards is only known from a letter written to Baker (first printed by Wilson), and dated 12 Aug. 1730. The letter, expressing profound depression, shows that for some reason Defoe had gone into hiding; that he had trusted all his property to his son (Benjamin Norton Defoe) for the benefit of the two unmarried daughters and their ‘poor dying mother,’ and that the son suffered them ‘to beg their bread at his door.’ He still confides in Baker's affection, proposes a secret meeting with his family, but sees great difficulties, and is in expectation of death. The allusions are far from clear, and the letter gives ground for some suspicion that Defoe's intellect was partly unsettled. It refers, however, to a blow from a ‘wicked, perjured, and contemptible enemy,’ and Mr. Lee's conjectural explanation is certainly not improbable. Mist had escaped to France in the beginning of 1728, where he lived with the Duke of Wharton. He may have revenged himself upon his old enemy by somehow conveying to the English government a charge of disloyalty against Defoe. Defoe's letters in 1718 show his sense that such a misinterpretation of his dealings with the Jacobites was possible, as the letters are intended to place his true position on record. Those who had been privy to the original compact were dead or out of office. Defoe may have feared that he would be seriously charged with treason and be unable to prove that he was only treacherous to the Jacobites. This, however, is conjectural. It is certain that he still retained enough mental power to write an ‘Effectual Scheme for the immediate Preventing of Street Robberies,’ which appeared in 1731. In the previous winter he had returned to London, and died ‘of a lethargy,’ in Ropemakers' Alley, Moorfields (not then a miserable quarter), on 26 April 1731. He was buried in Bunhill Fields. His wife was buried in the same place on 19 Dec. 1732. His library, with a ‘curious collection of books on history and politics,’ was sold in November 1731 (Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. ix. 142). An obelisk was erected in Bunhill Fields in 1870. A full account of his descendants till 1830 is given by Wilson (iii. 641–50). His eldest son, Daniel, appears to have been in business, and to have finally emigrated to Carolina. His second son, Benjamin Norton, was editor of the ‘London Journal,’ in succession to Thomas Gordon, a well-known writer, and was prosecuted for libel in 1721. He opposed his father, with whom he was personally on bad terms. Pope refers to him in the ‘Dunciad,’ and repeats a scandal, derived from Savage (Author to be Let, preface), that he was Defoe's illegitimate son by an oyster-seller. The letters of Defoe and his daughter to Baker imply that he had then only one son, or only one in England; and Benjamin is probably the son accused of a breach of trust. In 1726 he succeeded Ridpath as editor of the ‘Flying Post,’ and he wrote a life of Alderman Barber and memoirs of the Princes of Orange. Defoe's daughters were Maria, afterwards a Mrs. Langley; Hannah, who died unmarried at Wimborne Minster on 25 April 1759; Henrietta, married to John Boston of Much Hadham, and afterwards excise officer at Wimborne, where she died a widow in 1760; and Sophia, baptised on 24 Dec. 1701, who married Henry Baker, F.R.S. [q. v.], and died on 4 Jan. 1762. Her son, David Erskine [q. v.], was author of the ‘Companion to the Playhouse;’ her second son, Henry (1734–1766) [q. v.], was grandfather to the Rev. Henry Defoe Baker, vicar of Greetham, Rutlandshire, who gave information to Wilson and communicated the letter to Henry Baker. Wilson also received information from James Defoe, grandson of a grandson named Samuel.