mission (1 Aug. 1699); and he also became secretary to a factory started at Tilbury in Essex to compete with the Dutch in making pantiles. He had a share in the business, and its prosperity seems to be proved by the reduction of his debts. Defoe became prominent in the last years of William as a writer in defence of the king's character and policy. In 1697 he had argued vigorously for a standing army. His most remarkable production was ‘The Two great Questions considered’ (1700), being a vigorous defence of the expected war, upon the ground of the danger to our commercial interests of a French acquisition of the Spanish dominions in America. A French translation, with a reply, appeared in 1701. In the same year Tutchin accused William of being a Dutchman in a poem called ‘The Foreigners.’ Defoe was ‘filled with a kind of rage,’ and retorted in ‘The True-born Englishman, a Satyr,’ published January 1701. In rough verses, sometimes rising to the level of exceedingly vigorous prose, he declares that Englishmen are a race of mongrels, bred from the offscourings of Europe in all ages. The sturdy sense of this shrewd assault upon the vanity of his countrymen secured a remarkable success. Defoe declares (Collected Writings, vol. ii. preface) in 1705 that nine genuine and twelve pirated editions had been printed, and eighty thousand copies sold in the streets. He described himself on the title-pages of many subsequent works as ‘author of the True-born Englishman,’ and he had the honour of an introduction to William. He had ‘attended’ Queen Mary when she gave orders for laying out Kensington Gardens (Tour, vol. ii. letter iii. p. 14), but apparently without becoming personally known to her. William now treated him with a confidence of which he often boasted in later years. His gratitude appears in several pamphlets, and in annual articles in the ‘Review’ upon anniversaries of William's birthday. He wrote a pamphlet, ‘Six Distinguishing Characters of a Parliament-Man,’ on the election of the parliament in January 1701, calling attention to the serious questions involved and denouncing stockjobbers. The tory majority impeached William's chief whig supporters, and imprisoned five gentlemen who presented the famous ‘Kentish petition’ on behalf of the whig policy. Hereupon Defoe drew up the ‘Legion Memorial’—so called from the signature, ‘Our name is Legion, and we are many’—audaciously rebuking the House of Commons. It was accompanied by a letter to the speaker, delivered, according to various accounts, by Defoe himself, on 14 May 1701, either disguised as a woman or ‘guarded by sixteen gentlemen of quality’ (see Wilson, i. 395–406, where the documents are printed). The house was unable or afraid to vindicate its dignity; and the petitioners, being liberated on the rising of parliament (24 June 1701), were entertained at the Mercers' Hall, where Defoe was placed by their side.
The controversy gave rise to a ‘Vindication of the Rights of the Commons of England’ by Sir Humphry Mackworth (1701), to which Defoe replied in his most noteworthy discussion of political theories, ‘The Original Power of the Collective Body of the People of England examined and asserted’ (dated 1702, but published 27 Dec. 1701). When war became imminent in 1701, Defoe discussed the question in a pamphlet called characteristically ‘Reasons against a War with France’ (1701). Though ostensibly arguing that the French sanction of an empty title was no sufficient ground for a war, his real purpose was to urge that the solid interests of England lay in securing for itself the colonial empire of Spain. Objection to continental alliances and a preference of colonial enterprise were the characteristic sentiments of the tory party. Defoe took a line of his own, and staunchly adhered to this opinion throughout his career.
William died 8 March 1702. Defoe showed his sincere regard for the king's memory in a poem called the ‘Mock Mourners,’ ridiculing the insincerity of the official lamentations, and attacked the high church party, now coming into power, in a ‘New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty.’ He now got into a singular difficulty, which has suggested various judgments of his conduct. A bill to suppress the practice of ‘occasional conformity’ was the favourite measure of the high church party throughout the reign of Queen Anne. In 1697 the lord mayor had given offence by attending the services both of the church and his chapel with his official paraphernalia. Defoe had then attacked this inconsistency, arguing that as the vital principle of dissent was the sinfulness of conformity, a desire to qualify for office could not justify an act of conformity for that particular purpose. In November 1700 he reprinted his tract, with a preface addressed to the eminent divine, John Howe; and in December published a rejoinder to a reply from Howe. In 1702 the high church party now in power introduced a bill for suppressing the practice, which passed the House of Commons in November. Defoe joined in the controversy by ‘an inquiry,’ audaciously arguing, in consistency with his previous tracts, that the dissenters were not concerned in the matter. The bill, as he urged, though not intended, was
