In March 1728 the ‘Journal’ contained several articles directed against Pope, which Fenton noticed in writing to William Broome [q. v.] on 3 April (Pope, Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, viii. 143); and afterwards various letters from Lewis Theobald, hero of the ‘Dunciad,’ were printed. In that poem (i. 208) Pope spoke incidentally of Mist himself: ‘To Dulness Ridpath is as dear as Mist;’ and among the ‘Testimonies of Authors’ Pope included many passages from the ‘Journal.’
In January 1728 Mist had found it prudent to retire to France, where he joined the banished Duke of Wharton (Read's Journal, 20 Jan.) In March James Watson, who was in custody for printing matter directed against the government, said that Mist had left a certain Mr. Bingley in chief charge of his affairs, and that Bingley might properly be called the author of the ‘Journal,’ except the political essay at the beginning, which he knew to be written by another. An unsuccessful attempt was then made to arrest Bingley (State Papers, Dom. George II, Bundle 7, Nos. 42-5, 106). On 27 July the ‘Journal’ had a paragraph stating that the Duke of Wharton had set up a school in Rouen, and had taken Bingley, formerly a prisoner in Newgate, to be his usher; and that at the same place Mist was driving a hackney coach. All were, it was said, in a fair way of getting a decent livelihood.
On 24 Aug. a letter signed ‘Amos Drudge,’ and directed against Walpole and the government, was printed in the ‘Journal.’ Active steps were at once taken against those who were responsible, but Mist was in safety at Rouen (cf. Read, Journal, 31 Aug.) The king was of opinion that the author, printers, and publishers of the paper should be punished with the utmost severity of the law (State Papers, Dom. George II, Bundle 6, No. 105). The manuscript of the letter signed ‘Amos Drudge’ was seized by the king's messengers, and more than twenty persons were arrested (ib. Bundle 5, Nos. 71, 74) and examined at Hampton Court on 29 and 30 Aug. Among those arrested then or in the following month were James Wolfe, printer, Elizabeth Nutt, widow of Nutt the bookseller, and her daughter Catherine, William Burton, printer, Mist's maid and nephew, Dr. Gayland, and Farley, who had reprinted the letter in a paper he published at Exeter. On 31 Aug. the grand jury for the county of Middlesex expressed their abhorrence at the article, and other grand juries followed the example (Boyer, Political State, August and October 1728). The ‘Journals’ for 7 and 14 Sept. appeared as one number, and the ‘Journal’ for 21 Sept. was the last that appeared. These were printed by J. Wilford, and a warrant was issued against him on account of an attack in the paper for 7 and 14 Sept. upon the action of the legislature against the South Sea Company. Wilford surrendered himself, and was admitted to bail (Read's Journal, 28 Sept.) Wolfe, who had supervised the press for Mist, retired to join his master, then at Boulogne (Budgell's Bee, February 1733); but other friends continued the ‘Journal’ under the new name of ‘Fog's Weekly Journal,’ of which the first number, containing a letter signed ‘N. Mist,’ appeared on 28 Sept. Various persons had been arrested when ‘Mist's Journal’ for 7 and 14 Sept. was seized, and the press was destroyed. There are several petitions from these persons among the ‘State Papers’ (Bundle 5, Nos. 70, 80-6; Bundle 6, Nos. 54, 55, 74-80).
About the end of 1724 Defoe, writing anonymously in ‘Applebee's Journal,’ said that he had been abused and insulted by one whom he had fetched three times out of prison; and that this person had at length drawn a sword upon him, but that, being disarmed, he had been forgiven, and the wound inflicted in self-defence attended to. But, said Defoe, this kindness was followed only by more ingratitude. In 1730, when Defoe was ill and was living in concealment near Greenwich, he spoke of having received a blow ‘from a wicked, perjured, and contemptible enemy, that has broken in upon my spirit.’ Mr. Lee has argued, very plausibly, that this enemy was Mist, who, it is suggested, had represented to the English government the share Defoe had taken in various tory journals, perhaps supporting his statements by the production of objectionable articles, with alterations in Defoe's writing. The discovery by Mist of Defoe's secret understanding with the whigs when working for tory papers probably accounts for his active hostility.
In 1734 the titular Earl of Dunbar had a clandestine correspondence with Mist. In it he requested Mist's aid in bringing out some ‘Observations,’ in answer to a libel which had been issued against him by Charles Hamilton [q. v.] Mist seems to have complied. Dunbar thereupon assured his Jacobite friends and the pretender himself that the paper had been printed without his knowledge. But his letter to Mist was discovered in 1737 and forwarded to the pretender as a demonstrative proof that Dunbar ‘is and has been of a long time a hired spy to the Elector of Hanover’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. pt. i. pp. 490-1, 493-5, 503, 518).
Mist died of asthma on 20 Sept. 1737, and
