Among his earliest pamphlets was one which has not descended to us, but being on a subject nearly akin to certain recent trans-actions on the continent, we may notice it here. The Emperor of Austria had goaded the Hungarians into rebellion. These poor people were Protestants, and the Emperor, a Papist, which made matters worse. They appealed for aid to neighbouring Protestant countries, but without success. On this they called in the Turks, who were then a brave nation, and with them they pressed the Emperor so hard, laying siege to Vienna, that Sobieski, King of Poland, fearing lest the Mahommedans should get footing in the very heart of Europe, raised a large body of troops, horse and foot; and, suddenly coming on the Turks, defeated them with great slaughter. The question in England was, whether it was right to help the Papist emperor, who had dealt very unmercifully with his Protestant subjects, and many said, no; but De Foe thought, that their calling in the Turks quite overbalanced the scale against the Hungarians-it not being the interest of the Protestant religion to have even Popery itself thus extirpated. In fact, he said, he had rather the Emperor should tyrannize than the Turks. For the Papist hates me because he thinks me an enemy to Christ and his church; but the Turk hates me because he hates the name of Christ, bids him defiance as a Saviour, and declares universal war against his very name.'

This was the first time he differed from his friends in politics, many being much offended with him, for which he expressed his sorrow; but, having carefully examined his opinions, he would not suppress them when he believed them to be true. This was one of the noblest traits in his character. He was a sincere man. He began life by boldly avowing what, after mature consideration, he believed to be the truth; and he continued to do so in spite of persecution, and loss of friendships, and of money. No sleek, variable man, he-bending and yielding to the opinions of others, either from courtesy or fear. He feared nothing but his Conscience: that was the only critic who could make him afraid. Unlike the great body of his contemporaries-unlike the great body of our contemporaries, too-he thought for himself; he ascertained the truth for himself; and then he would not hide it, but proclaimed it on every side, although dungeons, and pillories, and fines, as well as arguments, were brought against him.

In 1685, Charles II. died, leaving the nation in a truly pitiable state. Morality, honesty, religion, and all other virtues, were not only neglected, but ridiculed in every way. Such things could not be suffered in another reign. Divine right was a straw to prop such a fabric; and though James II. came

to the throne with fair promises, it was no sooner known that any amendments were proposed with a view to the establishment of Popery, than the whole body of Protestants in the nation determined to make a stand against him.

Their first efforts failed. With a number of others, mostly Dissenters (for the revenues of the Church not having been as yet fingered, that body only looked on), De Foe joined Monmouth when he landed in June, 1685. The expedition was badly managed: had it been otherwise, he states that it must have succeeded, for half the Dorsetshire nobility would have joined the Duke but for his ill-timed proclamation of himself as king, and the denunciation of Albemarle and Faversham as traitors. These and other follies worked against them; and on Sedge-Moor the army was scattered by James's forces, and Monmouth was afterwards taken. De Foe did not wait for the issue, but escaped to London, where he managed so well as not even to be suspected of a share in that business; nor would it have been known at all, if he had not himself divulged it years after.

This event, however, made him seriously consider whether he was not losing his time by thus mixing in the battles of politics, which he could neither direct nor allay. He was recommended to a respectable manufacturer, then in want of a London agent; and, after a struggle, he was persuaded to lay politics partly aside, and commence as a broker. His offices were in Freeman's Yard, Cornhill, where Royal Exchange Buildings now stand.

But he did not take kindly to trade. It was solemn drudgery to him; and he hankered after politics and adventure, just as a jockey turned ploughman would hanker after the chase when he saw his field alive with hunters in full course. Accordingly, he took a very early opportunity to join once more in controversy; and when James, to encourage the Papists, proposed the free toleration of Dissenters, he wrote a pamphlet to caution his fellow-Nonconformists against accepting such a gift, not granted by parliament, but by the royal dispensation alone. It was plain, he said, that it was wholly inconsistent with the constitution, and done only to create a feud between the Dissenters and the Church, that the Papists might find a weak and divided camp, and so get the day. Here, again, he offended some of his friends, who told him that he was a young man, and did not understand the Dissenters' interests, but was doing them harm instead of good; to which, when time undeceived them, he only returned the words of that young man to Job, for which God never reproved him- Great men are not always wise, nor do the aged understand judgment.' In fact, though he had said, he had

rather the Popish Austrians should ruin the Protestant Hungarians than that the Infidel House of Ottoman should ruin both Protestant and Papist in Germany, yet he would rather have the Church of England pull the Dissenters' clothes off by fines and forfeitures than that the Papists should fall both on Church and Dissenters and pull their skins off by fire and faggot.

This was a strange time in our ecclesiastical history. The Nonconformists held the real balance of power, and, had they joined with King James, the Prince of Orange might as well have stayed in Holland. But they would not do this. The Church had cruelly plundered them, yet they chose rather to be under a Protestant than a Papal governor, and so saved the Church of England from her enemies.

De Foe's account of the conduct of that Church in her straits, is very amusing. The clergy, he says, became the very opposite of what they had been, and were the foremost to cry up peace and union, pressing the Dissenters to forget unkindnesses, and come into a general league against the danger that threatened them; and they were their brethren, the Dissenters,' and 'their brethren that differed from them in some things,' now that it was evident if the Nonconformists joined Rome they would be undone. To these sudden friends, however, the Dissenters paid little or no heed; they preferred their tyranny to Papal tyranny, and therefore did not intend to side with Rome, which, when they found, the Church party took courage, and the crisis of our history arrived.

James had grown proud, in consequence of his success against Monmouth, and pushed his prerogative far beyond its rightful limits. Mass-worship was openly practised in many places, and the offices of trust and high pay were filled with priests. The Protestant feeling of the nation would bear no more, and proposals were made to William of Orange, who landed at Torbay on the 4th November, 1688. De Foe regrets, in one of his tracts, that he could not leave his business so long as to go there to meet him, but he joined the march at Henley.

It seemed as if the whole people of England had, with one consent, risen for their deliverance. Where they could they joined William; where they could not do that they assembled under the gentlemen and nobility, and drew together in great bodies at York, Nottingham, and elsewhere. The enthusiasm was so great that a sudden terror fell on the enemy's camp, and when the people looked for at least a battle, the whole Popish pack had vanished, like spectres at cockcrowing.

De Foe tells many tales of this excited time; how poor James parted with his dignity, and courage, and crown altc

gether. He gives the best account of his escape from Faversham by boat, and his return, and how, being recognised, he was nearly mobbed; how he applied, but without effect, to a clergyman for protection, reminding him of the doctrine of divine right of kings so much preached and professed by his cloth. And he satirically expresses his wonder how the clergyman could so suddenly have forgotten the doctrine, just as the king was dethroned. If he had forgotten it when the throne was firm, and Judge Jeffreys the lion rampant on the arms, it would have been another thing, but,

"Tis natural in man to save his own,

And rather to be perjured than undone.'

As soon as William heard how James was handled he sent a coach and guard for him, and had him brought to London, where his presence being inconvenient, he allowed him to pass to Rochester, and thence, on the first opportunity, he escaped to France.

Thus, as De Foe says in one of his papers, was the public peace of Britain preserved, and the religious and civil liberty of the country were rescued from the ruinous projects of Popery and tyranny. The crown was effectually secured in the hands of Protestants, it being, once for all, declared inconsistent with our constitution to be governed by a Roman Catholic; and not only this, but the right of the people was proved to dispose of the crown even in bar of hereditary title—that is, to limit the succession of the crown. By which article De Foe-who hated divine right as much as the Stuarts hated freedom-saw a thorough suppression of that absurdity.

But still he was disappointed with the Revolution, because of the scanty allowance made to the Nonconformists. It angered him to see how foolishly that party acted-unlike men of sense, and men who had been so long ill-used. He would have had them make just and reasonable conditions with the Churchmen; not the Low Churchmen only, but the High Flyers also. Both, as he said, wanted the Revolution equally, and would have given any terms. Schools, academies, places-they might have been all had under hand and seal-they could not have been denied at that time. But the simple Dissenters ventured their liberty on a parole of honour, when they might have secured it by express stipulation, and we all know the result. It has been too much our practice. Our chief men, long in opposition, are flattered when their powerful antagonists are humbled, and ask for terms; and they are easily induced to play the magnanimous part, and trust that to generosity, which they should insist on as their right. Let us be awake in these times, when we are again holding the

balance of power; and, while we secure our freedom as Protestants, take heed that we free ourselves from our Protestant chains.

However, when the Church property was once more settled, a bone was thrown to the Dissenters; by the Act of Toleration in 1689. This was much against the desire of the High Church party, whose affection for their brethren that differed from them in some things' was now over. But De Foe could hardly attend to these things at that time, having met that fate, as he says, which imprudence is sure to bring, even if unattended with negligence, such as we fear must be charged to him. His brokerage business appears to have answered well, but he was not content with it. He traded on his own account, and, indeed, overtraded; and although many do this and succeed, our great merchants often making their chief money, that is, the first of it, at risk of the insolvent court, yet the system of false capital is utterly rotten, and those who pursue it deserve to fall. There were other causes, however. He was a hosier; but, although the blue-stocking' has long been the sign of feminine literateurs, we do not find that authorship was happily blended in the case of De Foe with trading in the article itself. In fact, his soul was not in what he did in Cornhill; and some heavy losses in 1692 forced him to a deception which he abhorred, and he absconded from his creditors.

He who has nothing, can pay nothing; and, to keep a man in perpetual prison for debt, De Foe argued, was murdering him by law. To avoid this, he escaped in time; but we record it to his honour, that he eventually paid every one nearly twenty shillings in the pound.

After a short absence from his country, which he dearly loved, and was always loath to quit, the temper of his creditors proved friendly, and he returned. He was solicited by some merchants to settle at Cadiz, as a broker once more, but Providence, he says, who had other work for him to do, placed a secret aversion in his mind to quitting England, and made him refuse the best offers of that kind, to be concerned with some eminent persons at home in proposing ways and means to the Government. Some time after this he was made Accountant to the commissioners of the stamp duty, in which service he continued till the determination of their commission in 1699.

After this he formed a company for making pantiles, which, till then, had been wholly imported from Holland; the works were at Tilbury, on the Thames. De Foe was made secretary; but the scheme had not much success, and at last, owing to the barbarity of his enemies, it was ruined.

Meanwhile he did not cease writing. It will be impossible.