CHAPTER IV.

AFTER his release from Newgate, De Foe took up his residence at Bury St. Edmund's, in Suffolk, as we have seen, where he resided in quietness, writing his books; but remained so long, that the Tory scamps of the day (for such were the paid scribes of that party for the most part) had to invent the slander, that he had run away from justice; in short, that he had not been seen since the £100 reward had been offered in the London Gazette for the apprehension of the writer of the Memorial to the Lords; and also that a government warrant was out against him as the author of this Memorial. This slander having so constantly appeared in the Tory Rehearsals, Observators, Craftsmen, True Britons, Examiners, Corn-cutters' Journal, and other newspapers or pamphlets, from Leslie down to Browne and Ward, that poor De Foe's credit was completely impaired; at least he intimates as much in his Review at the time; so that he had to advertise himself in his own Review as living at large at Bury St. Edmund's, where he could be found at any time; and, as government had been mixed up with his retirement, and the slander of his having absconded, he wrote to the secretary of state to inform him that, if a government warrant was really out against him, he might be found living at Bury St. Edmund's; to which notification he received a friendly reply, that the government were not in search of him.

On Nov. 4 he thus writes in his Review, page 291:

"Whereas, in several written news-letters dispersed about the country, and supposed to be written by one Dyer, a news-writer, and by Mr. Fox, bookseller in Westminster Hall, it has falsely, and of mere malice, been scandalously asserted that Daniel De Foe was absconded and fled from justice; that he had been searched for by

messengers, could not be found, and more the like scoundrel expressions; the said Daniel De Foe hereby desires all people who are willing not to be imposed upon by the like villanous practices, to take notice, that the whole story is a mere genuine forgery, industriously and maliciously contrived, if possible, to bring him into trouble; that the said Daniel De Foe, being at St. Edmund's Bury, in Suffolk, when the first of these papers appeared, immediately wrote to both her Majesty's secretaries of state, to acquaint them with his being in the country on his lawful occasions; and to let them know that, on the least intimation from them, he would come up by post, and put himself into their hands, to answer any charge that should be brought against him. That, as soon as his business was over in the country, he made his humble complaint of this unprecedented usage to the secretary of state; and had the honour to understand, that no officer, messenger, or other person had received any order, warrant, or other direction to search for, apprehend, or otherwise disturb the said Daniel De Foe, or that there was any complaint or charges brought against him. And further, having been informed that Mr. Robert Stephens, the messenger, had reported that he had an order or power from the secretaries of state to stop and detain the said Daniel De Foe, and that he made several inquiries after him to that purpose; the said Daniel De Foe hereby gives notice, that as soon as he came to town, and before his application to the secretary of state, he went, and in the presence of sufficient witnesses, spoke with the said Robert Stephens, the messenger, as he calls himself, of the press; and, offering himself into his custody, demanded of him if he had received any order to detain him; and he denied that he had any such order, notwithstanding he had most openly, and in villanous terms, repeated before that he would detain him if he could find him, and had, in a scandalous manner, made inquiries after him. The said Daniel De Foe, having no other remedy against such barbarous treatment but by setting the matter in a true light, thinks he could do no less, in justice to the government and himself, than make this publication; and further, he hereby offers the reward of £20 to any person that shall discover to him, so as to prove it, the author and publisher of any of those news

letters in which those reports were published; which shall be paid immediately, upon such proof made, at the publishers of this paper. "Witness my hand, "DANIEL DE FOE."

At this time (1704), De Foe wrote his celebrated pamphlet, Giving Alms no Charity. It was intended as an answer to Sir Humphrey Mackworth's bill, then introduced into the Commons, for employing the poor, by establishing houses of industry or, properly, workhouses, in the original meaning of the term-houses for employing the parish poor in working. This publication appeared as an Address to the House of Commons from an English Freeholder; for as such he claimed a right to be concerned in the good of that community of which he was an unworthy member; and that this honourable House is the representative of all the freeholders of England; for he says, "You are assembled for their good; you study their interest; you possess their hearts, and you hold the strings of the general purse." In this address he attributes to Queen Elizabeth the importation of Dutch and Flemish manufactures, for "The Queen [Elizabeth] who knew the wealth and vast numbers of people which the said manufactures had brought to the neighbouring countries, then under the King of Spain, the Dutch being not yet revolted, never left off endeavouring, what she happily brought to pass, viz., the transplanting into England those springs of riches and people. She saw the fountain of all this wealth and workmanship-I mean the wool-was in her own hands; and Flanders became. the seat of all these manufactures, not because it was naturally richer and more populous than other countries, but because it lay near England; and the staple of English wool, which was the foundation of all the wealth, was at Antwerp, in the heart of that country.

"From hence it may be said of Flanders: It was not the riches and the number of people brought the manufactures into the Low Countries, but it was the manufactures brought the people thither; and multitudes of people make trade; trade makes wealth; wealth builds cities; cities enrich the land round them; land enrich'd, rises in value; and the value of lands enriches the government. "Many projects were set on foot in England to erect the woollen

manufacture here; and in some places it had found encouragement, before the days of this Queen, especially as to making of cloth; but stuffs, bays, says, serges, and such-like wares, were yet wholly the work of the Flemings.

"At last an opportunity offered, perfectly unlooked for, viz., the persecution of the Protestants, and introducing the Spanish Inquisition into Flanders, with the tyranny of the Duke d'Alva.

"It cannot be an ungrateful observation here to take notice how tyranny and persecution-the one an oppression of property, the other of conscience-always ruin trade, impoverish nations, depopulate countries, dethrone princes, and destroy peace.

"When an Englishman reflects on it, he cannot without infinite satisfaction look up to Heaven, and to this honourable House, that as the spring, this as the stream, from and by which the felicity of this nation has obtained a pitch of glory superior to all the people in the world.

"Your councils especially, when blest from Heaven, as now we trust they are, with the principles of unanimity and concord, can never fail to make trade flourish, war successful, peace certain, wealth flowing, blessings probable, the Queen glorious, and the people happy. Our unhappy neighbours of the Low Countries were the very reverse of what we bless ourselves for in you. Their kings were tyrants, their governments persecutors, their armies thieves and bloodhounds; their people divided, their councils confused, and their miseries innumerable.

"D'Alva, the Spanish governor, besieged their cities, decimated the inhabitants, murdered the nobility, proscribed their princes, and executed 18,000 men by the hand of the hangman. Conscience was trampled under foot, religion and reformation hunted like a hare upon the mountains; the Inquisition threatened, and foreign armies introduced.

Property fell a sacrifice to absolute power; the country was ravaged, the towns plundered, the rich confiscated, the poor starved, trade interrupted, and the tenth penny demanded.

"The consequence of this was, as in all tyrannies and persecutions it is, the people fled and scattered themselves in their neighbours'

countries, trade languished, manufactures went abroad and never returned, confusion reigned, and poverty succeeded. The multitude that remained, pushed to all extremities, were forced to obey the voice of Nature, and in their own just defence to take arms against

their governors.

"Destruction itself has its uses in the world: the ashes of one city rebuild another; and God Almighty, who never acts in vain, brought the wealth of England and the power of Holland into the world from the ruin of the Flemish liberty.

"The Dutch in defence of their liberty revolted, renounced their tyrant prince, and, prospered by Heaven and the assistance of England, erected the greatest commonwealth in the world.

"As D'Alva worried the poor Flemings, the Queen of England entertained them, cherished them, invited them, encouraged them. "Thousands of innocent people fled from all parts, from the fury of this merciless man; and as England, to her honour, has always been the sanctuary of her distressed neighbours, so now she was so, to her special and particular profit.

"The Queen [Elizabeth] who saw the opportunity put into her hands which she had so long wished for, not only received kindly the exiled Flemings, but invited over all that would come, promising them all possible encouragement, privileges, and freedom of her ports and the like. This brought over a vast multitude of Flemings, Walloons, and Dutch, who, with their whole families, settled at Norwich, at Ipswich, Colchester, Canterbury, Exeter, and the like. From these came the Walloon Church at Canterbury, and the Dutch Churches in Norwich, Colchester, and Yarmouth; from hence came the true-born English families in those places with foriegn names; as the De Vinks at Norwich, the Rebows at Colchester, the Papilons &c. at Canterbury: families to whom this nation are much in debt, for the first planting those manufactures from which we have since raised the greatest trades in the world.

"This wise Queen [Elizabeth] knew that numbers of inhabitants are the wealth and strength of a nation; she was far from that opinion, we have of late shown too much of, in complaining that foreigners came to take the bread out of our mouths, and ill treating