broke, had gone to remodel the forces in the Jacobite interest. The assertion produced an immediate prosecution for libel. While his trial was pending, Defoe wrote, apparently in September (Lee, i. 236, 240), his remarkable ‘Appeal to Honour and Justice,’ to meet the odium now accumulating from all parties. Soon afterwards appeared ‘Advice to the People of Great Britain,’ exhorting to moderation, and ‘A Secret History of One Year,’ the first, namely, of William's reign, pointing out, with obvious application, how William had been compelled to part with his whig supporters by their insatiable rapacity. He was probably also author of ‘The Secret History of the White Staff.’ This was written to all appearances to defend Lord Oxford, now a prisoner in the Tower. Oxford thought it necessary to disavow any complicity in the book, and even stated that it was intended to ‘do him a prejudice.’ But this was in all probability a merely prudential disavowal, which leaves to Defoe the credit of defending his patron in distress. A later pamphlet, called ‘Minutes of the Negotiations of M. Mesnager, … done out of the French,’ was published during the proceedings against Oxford in 1717, and clearly intended in his favour. Oldmixon says that Defoe composed it by Oxford's direction, and it is assigned to him by Mr. Lee (i. 269). He denied the authorship, however, emphatically, in the ‘Mercurius Politicus’ (Notes and Queries, 4th ser. iii. 548, v. 177, 202, 393). The ‘Appeal to Honour and Justice’ appeared in the first week of January 1715, with a ‘conclusion by the publisher,’ saying that the author had been struck by a ‘violent fit of apoplexy’ six weeks before and was still in a precarious state. Yet at the end of March appeared his ‘Family Instructor,’ a book of about 450 pages, which presumably had been written before, and was now published hastily and incorrectly ‘by reason of the author's absence from the press.’ During his illness Defoe was visited by a quaker, and he adopted the quaker style in several pamphlets which followed, reproving Sacheverell, the Duke of Ormonde, and others. On 1 July appeared a ‘History of the Wars of his present Majesty, Charles XII of Sweden.’ On 12 July he was brought to trial for the libel on Lord Annesley, and found guilty. Immediately afterwards he published a ‘Hymn to the Mob,’ occasioned by Jacobite disturbances, and in October a ‘View of the Scots' Rebellion,’ and another quaker pamphlet addressed to ‘John Eriskine, called by the men of the world, Duke of Mar.’
In November, Defoe's fellow-prisoners received sentence. Defoe himself escaped by a singular arrangement. According to his own account (Visions of the Angelick World, 48–50), a ‘strong impulse darted into his mind,’ ordering him to write to the judge, Chief-justice Parker, afterwards Lord Macclesfield. Parker, who had been one of his judges in 1713, put him in communication with Lord Townshend, then secretary of state. Letters addressed to Charles De la Faye, of the secretary of state's office, found in the State Paper Office in 1864, and first published in the ‘London Review’ 4 and 11 June 1864, reveal the transaction which followed. Defoe again entered the employment of the government. He first wrote a monthly paper called ‘Mercurius Politicus,’ which began in May 1716 and continued till at least September 1720. In June 1716 he acquired from one Dormer a share in the ‘News Letter,’ a weekly paper which had been managed by Dyer, now dead. It was not published, but circulated in manuscript, and was a favourite organ of the high church party. Defoe undertook that while the ‘style should continue tory,’ he would so manage it as entirely to ‘take the sting out of it.’ He continued this until August 1718, but no copies of the work are known. Soon afterwards, about August 1717, he undertook a similar position in the management of ‘Mist's Journal,’ a Jacobite organ started in the previous year. On 13 Dec. 1717 he acknowledges the receipt of 25l. from the Earl of Sunderland (Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. 24). He introduced himself to Mist ‘in the disguise of a translator of foreign news.’ Mist had not the least suspicion of his connection with government, and Defoe contrived to regulate the paper, and make himself essential to its success. Mist published a Jacobite letter in spite of Defoe's protest on 25 Oct. 1718. He was arrested, but released by Defoe's influence. He flatly denied, in answer to contemporary attacks in ‘Read's Journal,’ that Defoe was employed by him, and a separation took place. Read observed that Defoe's share was sufficiently proved by the ‘agreeableness of the style … the little art he is truly a master of, of forging a story and imposing it on the world for truth,’ a remark which shows Defoe's reputation just before the appearance of ‘Robinson Crusoe.’ Defoe's defection caused the journal to decline, and in January 1719 Mist restored him to the virtual management of the journal. Mist was again arrested in June 1720. Defoe managed the paper during his imprisonment, but from this time took comparatively little share in the paper. His last article appeared 24 Oct. 1724.
Defoe contributed to other papers at the same time. He started the ‘Whitehall Even-
