adopted without question by all subsequent writers; and no one thought of looking into Mercurius Politicus to ascertain the correctness or otherwise of Toland's statement. I am bound in candour to confess that, as a matter of private opinion, I held the same error, and when political pamphlets of later date than 1715 were offered to me by booksellers as Defoe's, I rejected them, in the belief that he wrote nothing on political subjects after that year.

The Letters, as already stated, are entirely in the handwriting of Defoe, and were all apparently addressed to Charles De la Fay, Esq.,* of the Secretary of State's Office. There can be no possible doubt of their genuineness. The originals are preserved in the archives of the Government. They are as follows:

:

I.

"SIR,-I could not read without Pain to Day in the Public Prints something of an Account of that Traitorous Pamphlet being printed; I mean that which I shewed you, and which I sent to my Lord Sunderland.

This gentleman was probably son of Dr. De la Faye, an eminent Physician of London, who died suddenly of apoplexy, at the Buffler's Head Tavern, on the 19th March, 1720. Charles De la Faye must have been a man of considerable talent. The first notice I find of him in the newspapers is his appointment as Private Secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland, in the beginning of Sept. 1715. In 1718, as above, he appears to have occupied a highly confidential position in the Secretary of State's office. In May, 1719, he was appointed Secretary to the Lords Justices of the Regency during the King's absence in Hanover. Shortly afterward he was appointed to the sinecure office of one of the King's Tasters of Wine in Ireland; and when Mr. Flurnoe, the other "Taster," died, at the end of the same year, the place was wholly given to Mr. De la Faye. In June, 1720, the King having again gone to Hanover, Mr. De la Faye was re-appointed Secretary to the Regency. In this capacity I find him frequently examining and committing political offenders. In January, 1728, he was promoted to be one of the Gentlemen Sewers to King George II. I do not know the date of his death, but he was probably for half a century a Public Servant. His Library was sold in 1764.

VOL. I.

b

"I beg you will please to assure his Lordship from me, that the Original, which I shewed you, is still in my Hand; and has never been out of my keeping; nor has an Eye seen it, or any Copy been taken of it, that one excepted which I sent to his Lordship.

"I here enclose a Letter, which I have stopt, which I think is worth his Lordship's Notice. I dare not yet come Abroad, but hope to see you in three or four Days if the cold Weather abates. "I am, Sir,

"Your Most Humble Servant,

"Newington, April 12, 1718."

II.

"DE FOE.

"SIR, Though I doubt not but you have acquainted my Lord Stanhope with what humble Sense of his Lordship's Goodness I received the Account you were pleased to give me, that my little Services are accepted, and that his Lordship is satisfied to go on upon the Foot of former Capitulations, &c. ; yet I confess, Sir, I have been anxious on many Accounts, with respect as well to the Service itself, as my own Safety, lest my Lord may think himself ill served by me, even when I may have best performed my Duty.

"I thought it therefore not only a Debt to myself, but a Duty to his Lordship, that I should give his Lordship a short Account, as clear as I can, how far my former Instructions empowered me to Act, and, in a word, what this little Piece of secret Service is, for which I am so much a Subject of his Lordship's present Favour and Bounty.

"It was in the Ministry of my Lord Townshend, when my Lord Chief Justice Parker, to whom I stand obliged for the Favour, was pleased so far to state my Case, that notwithstanding the Misrepresentations under which I had suffered, and notwithstanding some Mistakes which I was the first to acknowledge; I was so happy as to be believed in the Professions I made of a sincere Attachment to the Interest

of the present Government, and, speaking with all possible Humility, I hope I have not dishonoured my Lord Parker's Recommendation.

"In considering, after this, which Way I might be rendered most useful to the Government; it was proposed by my Lord Townshend that I should still appear as if I were, as before, under the displeasure of the Government, and separated from the Whigs; and that I might be more serviceable in a kind of Disguise, than if I appeared openly; and upon this Foot a weekly Paper, which I was at first directed to write, in opposition to a scandalous Paper called the Shift Shifted, was laid aside, and the first Thing I engaged in, was a monthly Book called Mercurius Politicus, of which presently. In the interval of this, Dyer, the News-Letter-writer, having been dead, and Dormer his successor, being unable by his Troubles to carry on that Work; I had an offer of a Share in the Property, as well as in the Management of that Work.

"I immediately acquainted my Lord Townshend of it, who, by Mr. Buckley, let me know it would be a very acceptable Piece of Service; for that Letter was really very prejudicial to the Public, and the most difficult to come at in a judicial Way in Case of Offence given. My Lord was pleased to add, by Mr. Buckley, that he would consider my Service in that Case, as he afterwards did.

Upon this I engaged in it; and that so far, that though the Property was not wholly my own, yet the Conduct and Government of the Style and News was so entirely in me, that I ventured to assure his Lordship the Sting of that mischievous Paper should be entirely taken out, though it was granted that the Style should continue Tory, as it was, that the Party might be amused, and not set up another, which would have destroyed the Design: And this Part I therefore take entirely on myself still.

"This went on for a Year, before my Lord Townshend went out of the Office; and his Lordship, in Consideration of this Service, made me the Appointment which Mr. Buckley knows

of, with promise of a further Allowance as Service presented.

"My Lord Sunderland, to whose Goodness I had many Years ago been obliged, when I was in a secret Commission sent to Scotland, was pleased to approve and continue this Service, and the Appointment annexed; and, with his Lordship's Approbation, I introduced myself, in the Disguise of a Translator of the Foreign News, to be so far concerned in this weekly Paper of Mist's, as to be able to keep it within the Circle of a secret Management, also prevent the mischievous Part of it; and yet neither Mist, or any of those concerned with him, have the least Guess or Suspicion by whose Direction I do it.

"But here it becomes necessary to acquaint my Lord (as I hinted to you, Sir), that this Paper, called the Journal, is not in myself in Property, as the other, only in Management; with this express difference, that if anything happens to be put in without my Knowledge, which may give Offence, or if anything slips my Observation which may be ill taken, his Lordship shall be sure always to know whether he has a Servant to reprove, or a Stranger to correct.

"Upon the whole, however, this is the Consequence, that by this Management, the Weekly Journal, and Dormer's Letter, as also the Mercurius Politicus, which is in the same Nature of Management as the Journal, will be always kept (Mistakes excepted) to pass as Tory Papers, and yet be disabled and enervated, so as to do no Mischief, or give any Offence to the Government.

"I beg leave to observe, Sir, one Thing more to his Lordship in my own behalf, and without which, indeed, I may, one Time or other, run the Risk of fatal Misconstructions. I am, Sir, for this Service, posted among Papists, Jacobites, and enraged High Tories-a Generation who, I profess, my very Soul Abhors; I am obliged to hear traitorous Expressions and outrageous Words against his Majesty's Person and Government, and his most faithful Servants, and smile at it all, as if I approved it; I am obliged to take all the scandalous and,

indeed, villainous Papers that come, and keep them by me as if I would gather Materials from them to put them into the News; nay, I often venture to let Things pass which are a little Shocking, that I may not render myself suspected.

"Thus I bow in the House of Rimmon, and must humbly recommend myself to his Lordship's Protection, or I may be undone the sooner, by how much the more faithfully I execute the Commands I am under.

"I forbear to enlarge. I beg you, Sir, to represent these Circumstances to his Lordship, in behalf of a faithful Servant, that shall always endeavour to approve his Fidelity by Actions rather than Words.

"I am, Sir, your most humble Servant,

"Newington, April 26, 1718.

"DE FOE.

"P.S.-I send you here one of the Letters stopt at the Press, as I mentioned to you; as to the Manuscript of Sultan Galga, another villainous Paper, I sent the Copy to my Lord Sunderland. If the Original be of any Service, it is ready at your first Orders."

III.

“SIR,—I am extremely concerned that the Journal of this Day has copied from the Post Boy that ridiculous Paragraph of the Pretender's being in the List of the Queen Dowager's legitimate Children, and I have spoken my Mind very freely to him of it.

"But Sir, I think, in consequence of what I wrote last to you, it is my Duty to assure my Lord, that I have no Part in this Slip, but that Mr. Mist did it, after I had looked over what he had gotten together, which it seems was not sufficient; and though I would, if I may presume so far, intercede for him, yet my Lord may be assured I have no Concern in it, directly or indirectly. This, Sir, I say, I thought myself obliged to Notice to you, to make good what I said in my last, (viz.) that if any Mistake happened, my Lord should