Review, vol. iii. p. 397 :-" Being launched into the ocean of lunaticks, in search of that vast fountain of general extravagance from whence all our national frenzies flow; such various scenes have presented themselves to my view, that really render the account something confused. I have touched at trade lunaticks; and entered a little upon the black scene of the fury of creditors, against even those debtors who are willing freely to strip themselves of all the remnants of their misfortune, that they might be at liberty to work for more. I should inquire, I say, further into these horrid things, were it not that it might seem to be drawing the picture of my own case, which is now upon the stage, than which no man's case, that ever came for relief by this new act of Parliament, has ever been more severe; and than whom no man is treated worse, on his flying to this sanctuary of the law, for deliverance. "I confess myself surprised at my own affair; and I should not have troubled the world with it, if it were not something never heard of before. Several debtors have been used hardly by creditors, and their discharge vigorously opposed. But was ever the world so mad! The unhappy author of this, claiming a discharge from old misfortunes on a clear surrender, as by the law is directed, finds himself opposed, not by those he owes money too, but by those that owe him money; not by those who by disaster are wronged, but by those that have wronged, cheated, and plundered him of that money which should have helped to discharge others; to whom he never owed a shilling, of whom he never borrowed, but to whom he always lent; and who have actually defrauded him of near £500, advanced in compassion to save them from destruction. "If this paper should acquaint the world how these people have hitherto treated its author; how they seized upon his writings, left only in trust; how they conveyed away their relation, a partner, that he might not be an evidence; and compounded his private debts for his, without which he would not go; how they have sued him for bonds given, and afterwards discharged in partnership, and sued in the names of the persons to whom they were paid; without their knowledge; how, after beginning a suit, they have not dared to go on! after proposing a reference, they have not dared to stand to it; though accepted, and offered to be determined by their own arbitrator; if I should run on into all these particulars, the story would be too black to read.” I can quote no more. It is the old tale of the light, dressy, devil-may-care spendthrift, which has been told a thousand upon a thousand times; always persecuted by relations, friends, foes, and strangers, always wrong, always cheated, and never to blame. Another sacrifice to the black-coated, well-brushed, British godRespectability. Daniel De Foe must be respectable-yes! keep his coach upon his pantile trade of Tilbury Fort, and walk Bristol streets on Sunday, with wig, sword, ruffles, and frills, if hid from bailiffs and creditors for the remaining six days of the week, in a garret or a cellar! The lawyer had committed forgery; the age was mad, and he had been fourteen years in retreat, in jeopardy, in broils, and most of the time in banishment from his family; all his profits from his books had been swallowed up, though that has been very considerable, in making gradual payments to creditors; and in defending himself against those who would have it not only faster than their fellowcreditors, but even faster than it could be got. From this it would appear, that he had been in pecuniary difficulties, and separated from his family, for the most part, as an improvident husband and spendthrift father, from 1692; or ten years before the death of his great benefactor and friend, William III. of glorious memory. Well, William came in 1688, and died in 1702; and De Foe in 1706, in his Review for August 23, declares that he had been in retreat fourteen years, with jeopardy, broils, and most of the time in banishment from his family; and after the above, he goes on to say, "that they have since seen him stripped naked by the government, and the foundations torn up, on which he had built the prospect of paying debts, and raising his family; and yet now, when by common reasoning they ought to believe, the man has not bread for his children, have redoubled their attacks, with declarations, executions, escape warrants, and God knows how many engines of destruction; as if a gaol and death would pay their debts; as if money was to be found in the blood of the debtor, and they were to open his veins to "find it. That bind the ready hands of Industry, Pinion the willing wings, and bid men fly. They strip me naked first, then bid me pay. "But if this is not yet all, and though I confess, I did not expect it from anybody; yet as some whisperings have been spread of a further plot, even against the life of this unhappy debtor, and that among his friends too; he cannot but take notice of it here, as what he thinks the only proper reason, and is indeed one of the chief reasons of this publication, and which he hopes the world will allow to be a good reason; and this is a scandalous and vile suggestion, that he made concealments to defraud his creditors; or, in English, has not made a fair surrender of his effects. Now as, if this be true, he must be the greatest fool, as well as knave, knowing how many bloody enemies, as well as base and hypocritical friends, he is compassed with; so, if this be not true, the suggestion is a most vile and barbarous scandal. "The debtor can be guilty but two ways: either by innocent mistake, or by wilful deceit. For the first, omissions are certainly possible. Gentlemen, the author of this is no more infallible than other men; he may, and 'tis much if he have not, in the life of constant hurries he has lived; he may have forgotten, mistaken, wrong stated, wrong cast up, or otherwise erred in some part or branch of his account; and if this is your charge, gentlemen-if you are Christians, if men of like frailties, and whose case one time or other want the same like charity; if you have anything left in you that is moral or human; if any compassion for a man in danger, and a family with seven children that must perish in his disaster, help him, gentlemen, help in time, inform him of it, give the needful hint; and in common charity, show him this gulph, this pit of destruction, before it be too late to retrieve it. "Pray, gentlemen, come in with your charge at the meeting, and let it appear." It would appear from the above, that for fourteen years previous to 1706, De Foe had been running up and down the country an outcast, for the most part, and escaped, as is always the case with such outcasts, from the regular domestic comforts of house and home; an alien, stranger, intruder on his own hearthstone-a political secret-service official of the government, and party writer for bread; is it so? I should be sorry to detract from one of the greatest philosophers England ever knew, as well as one of her true-born sons; but yet, I fear, I must say—an improvident man, His whose necessities compelled him to write for party bread. father, James Foe, butcher, died in lodgings in 1705, leaving no will, and probably no effects; and Daniel, the subject of this writing, does not account for several years of his own life—I think six years --from his leaving Mr. Morton's academy, and again appearing as hose-factor in Freeman's Court, Cornhill. Some of De Foe's biographers have always represented him as a large Spanish, or large I believe Dutch, or large German, or East Indian merchant. nothing of the kind. He was a great philosopher, writer, and statesman (ScOTLAND, and its UNION with ENGLAND, to wit), who never had any means of subsistence; for he was always improvident; he lived a life of usefulness to his country-but lived, as he died, without a shilling. When De Foe commences the date of his embarrassments I know not. I should suppose he would leave out of the reckoning the period when he carried on the pantile trade at Tilbury Fort, and kept his coach out of the profits. It is certain that Ned Ward, in his Dissenting Hypocrite, places him in Newgate as early as 1689 (the year after William III. came as the deliverer of this country), and in Newgate for debt; for at the collection (as we have seen) in Dr. Daniel Burgess's chapel, it was given out, that Daniel wanted bread, and the collection for that bread was made accordingly. CHAPTER VI. IN the Review for July 18, 1706, De Foe announces a work for publication on the following Saturday; and a caution is given against the octavo edition, which was pirated and brought out at the same time; this work having been announced for publication so early as the year 1704, and subscriptions received on account of the work, and the work not appearing as announced, and partly subscribed for, great clamour was excited among the subscribers against the work, and against the author; and this was the folio poem against the divine right of kings, entitled Jure Divino. This work is voluminous and patriotic; but poor, perhaps, in the art of poetry, as may be accounted for by the fact of his being a prisoner in Newgate for writing the Shortest Way with the Dissenters when it was composed; and when his time must have been occupied with other subjects. We might readily believe that the jovial brutality of the felons' yard at Newgate was not exactly congenial to poetic inspiration on the rights of peoples, or the usurpations of monarchs. No! but so it was. Jure Divino was written, for the most part, in Newgate, when De Foe was a prisoner there in 1703 and 1704: and at a time when he was greatly occupied with the publication of his Review, and other works; for at this time he was truly industrious, as his various works fully testify; and on his release he was taken into diplomatic service by Harley, as a make-up, I suppose, for his forced neglect of his pamphleteer while confined in Newgate. He was liberated in the autumn of 1704; and in the following summer he was sent on some secret mission. fortified by govermental passports, into dangerous if not foreign parts; where he travelled under the assumed name of Mr. Christopher Hurt. On this dangerous |