Daniel Defoe

“ It is and ever was my opinion, that moderation is the only virtue by which the peace and tranquillity of this nation can be preserved. Even the king himself—I believe his majesty will allow me that freedom—can only be happy in the enjoyment of the crown by a moderative administration. If his majesty should be obliged, contrary to his known disposition, to join with intemperate councils, if it does not lessen his security, I am persuaded it will lessen his satisfaction. ”

“ Having said thus much of the obligations laid on me, and the persons by whom, I have this only to add, that I think no man will say, a subject could be under greater bonds to his prince, or a private person to a minister of state; and I shall ever preserve this principle, that an honest man cannot be ungrateful to his benefactor.
But let no man run away now with the notion, that I am now intending to plead the obligation that was laid upon me from her majesty, or from any other person, to justify my doing anything that is not otherwise to be justified in itself. ”

“ Let one word, either written or spoken by me, either published or not published, be produced, that was in the least disrespectful to the protestant succession, or to any branch of the family of Hanover, or that can be judged to be favourable to the interest or person of the pretender, and I will be willing to waive her majesty's pardon, and render myself to public justice, to be punished for it, as I should well deserve. ”

“ God grant the king may have more comfort of his crown than we suffered king William to have!
The king being dead, and the queen proclaimed, the hot men of that side, as the hot men of all sides do, thinking the game in their own hands, and all other people under their feet, began to run out into those mad extremes, and precipitate themselves into such measures as, according to the fate of all intemperate councils, ended in their own confusion, and threw them at last out of the saddle. ”

“ The effect of those services, however small, is enjoyed by those great persons and by the whole nation to this day; and I had the honour once to be told, that they should never be forgotten. It is a misfortune that no man can avoid, to forfeit for his deference to the person and services of his queen, to whom he was inexpressibly obliged; and if I am fallen under the displeasure of the present government for anything I ever did in obedience to her majesty in the past, I may say it is my disaster ”

“ And I must repeat it again, that he always left me so entirely to my own judgment, in everything I did, that he never prescribed to me what I should write, or should not write, in my life; neither did he ever concern himself to dictate to or restrain me in any kind; nor did he see any one tract that I ever wrote before it was printed; so that all the notion of my writing by his direction is as much a slander upon him as it is possible anything of that kind can be; and if I have written anything which is offensive, unjust, or untrue, I must do that justice as to declare, he has no hand in it ”

“ Hitherto the noise has been so great, and the prejudices and passions of men so strong, that it had been but in vain to offer at any argument, or for any man to talk of giving a reason for his actions; and this alone has been the cause why, when other men, who, I think, have less to say in their own defence, are appealing to the public, and struggling to defend themselves, I alone have been silent under the infinite clamours and reproaches, causeless curses, unusual threatenings, and the most unjust and injurious treatment in the world. ”

“ It is many years that I have professed myself an enemy to all precipitations in public administrations; [Pg 6] and often I have attempted to show, that hot councils have ever been destructive to those who have made use of them. Indeed, they have not always been a disadvantage to the nation, as in king James II.'s reign, when, as I have often said in print, his precipitation was the safety of us all: and if he had proceeded temperately and politicly, we had been undone. ”

“ As nothing in the world has been more my aversion than the society of jacobites, so nothing can be a greater misfortune to me than to be accused and publicly reproached with what is, of all things in the world, most abhorred by me; and that which has made it the more afflicting is, that this charge arises from those very things which I did with the sincerest design to manifest the contrary. ”

“ I have not seen or spoken to my lord of Oxford but once since the king's landing, nor received the least message, order, or writing from his lordship, or any other way corresponded with him, yet he bears the reproach of my writing in his defence, and I the [Pg 49] rage of men for doing it. I cannot say it is no affliction to me to be thus used, though my being entirely clear of the facts is a true support to me.
I am unconcerned at the rage and clamour of party men; but I cannot be unconcerned to hear men, who I think are good men and good Christians, prepossessed and mistaken about me. ”

“ Necessity is pleaded by both parties for doing things which neither side can justify. I wish both sides would for ever avoid the necessity of doing evil; for certainly it is the worst plea in the world, and generally made use of for the worst things.
I have often lamented the disaster which I saw employing jacobites was to the late ministry, and certainly it gave the greatest handle to the enemies of the ministry to fix that universal reproach upon them of being in the interest of the pretender. ”

“ It is none of my work to enter into the conduct of the queen or of the ministry in this case; the question is not what they have done, but what I have done; and though I am very far from thinking of them as some other people think, yet, for the sake of the present argument, I am to give them all up, and suppose, though not granting, that all which is suggested of them by the worst temper, the most censorious writer, the most scandalous pamphlet or lampoon should be true; and I'll go through some of the particulars, as I meet with them in public. ”

“ I spoke my mind freely then, and I have done the like now, in a small tract to that purpose not yet made public; and which if I live to publish I will publicly own, as I purpose to do everything I write, that my friends may know when I am abused, and they imposed on.
It has been the disaster of all parties in this nation to be very hot in their turn; and as often as they have been so I have differed with them, and ever must and shall do so. I will repeat some of the occasions on the whigs' side, because from that quarter the accusation of my turning about comes. ”

“ By the hints of mortality, and by the infirmities of a life of sorrow and fatigue, I have reason to think I am not a great way off from, if not very near to, the great ocean of eternity, and the time may not be long ere I embark on the last voyage. ”

“ If this is a crime, I must plead guilty, and give in the history of my obligation above mentioned as an extenuation at least, if not a justification of my conduct.
Suppose a man's father was guilty of several things unlawful and unjustifiable; a man may heartily detest the unjustifiable thing, and yet it ought not to be expected that he should expose his father. I think the case on my side exactly the same, nor can the duty to a parent be more strongly obliging than the obligation laid on me ”

“ The queen, who, though willing to favour the high-church party, did not thereby design the ruin of those whom she did not employ, was soon alarmed at their wild conduct, and turned them out, adhering to the moderate counsels of those who better understood, or more faithfully pursued, her majesty's and the country's interest. In this turn fell sir Edward Seymour's party, for so the high men were then called; and to this turn we owe the conversion of several other great men, who became whigs on that occasion, which it is known they were not before ”

“ Where I did see what, as before, I lamented and was sorry for, and could not join with or approve,—as joining with jacobites, the peace, &c.,—my obligation is my plea for my silence.
I have all the good thoughts of the person, and good wishes for the prosperity of my benefactor, that charity and that gratitude can inspire me with. I ever believed him to have the true interest of the protestant religion and of his country in his view ”

“ I hear much of people's calling out to punish the guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the innocent. ”

“ It was my opinion, and is so still, that the ninth article of the treaty of commerce was calculated for the advantage of our trade, let who will make it. That is nothing to me. My reasons are because it tied up the French to open the door to our manufactures at a certain duty of importation there, and left the parliament of Britain at liberty to shut theirs out by as high duties as they pleased here, there being no limitation upon us as to duties on French goods; but that other nations should pay the same. ”

“ They will neither prove the charge nor hear the defence, which is the unjustest thing in the world.
I foresee what will be alleged to the clause of my obligation, &c., to great persons, and I resolve to give my adversaries all the advantage they can desire by acknowledging beforehand, that no obligation to the queen, or to any benefactor, can justify any man's acting against the interest of his country, against his principles, his conscience, and his former profession. ”

“ And that I may make my worst enemies, to whom this is a fair appeal, judges of this, I must take leave, by and by, to repeat some of the expressions in [Pg 25] these books, which were direct and need no explanation, which I think no man that was in the interest of the pretender, nay, which no man but one who was entirely in the interest of the Hanover succession, could write.
Nothing can be severer in the fate of a man than to act so between two parties, that both sides should be provoked against him. ”

“ It cannot be pleasant or agreeable, and I think it cannot be safe, to any just prince, to rule over a divided people, split into incensed and exasperated parties. Though a skilful mariner may have courage to master a tempest, and goes fearless through a storm, yet he can never be said to delight in the danger ”

“ However, one thing I must say of the peace, let it be good or ill in itself, I cannot but think we have all reason to rejoice in behalf of his present majesty, that at his accession to the crown he found the nation in peace, and had the hands of the king of France tied up by a peace so as not to be able, without the most infamous breach of articles, to offer the least disturbance to his taking a quiet and leisurely [Pg 36] possession, or so much as to countenance those that would. ”

“ It is certain, the jacobites cursed those tracts and the author, and when they came to read them, being deluded by the titles according to the design, they threw them by with the greatest indignation imaginable. Had the pretender ever come to the throne, I could have expected nothing but death, and all the ignominy and reproach that the most inveterate enemy of his person and claim could be supposed to suffer. ”

“ A subject is not always master of his sovereign's measures, nor always to examine what persons or parties the prince he serves employs, so be it that they break not in upon the constitution; that they govern according to law, and that he is employed in no illegal act, or have nothing desired of him inconsistent with the liberties and laws of his country. ”

“ I hope some will be inclined to judge impartially, and have yet reserved so much of the Christian as to believe, and at least to hope, that a rational creature cannot abandon himself so as to act without some reason, and are willing not only to have me defend myself, but to be able to answer for me where they hear me causelessly insulted by others, and, therefore, are willing to have such just arguments put into their mouths as the cause will bear. ”

“ For if the confederates had conquered the French, they would certainly have fallen upon us by way of resentment, and there was no doubt but the same councils that led us to make a peace would oblige us to maintain it, by preventing too great impressions upon the French.
On the other hand, I alleged, that should the French prevail against the Dutch, unless he stopped at such limitations of conquest as the treaty obliged him to do, we must have been under the same necessity to renew the war against France ”

“ But, as it is a reproach upon his lordship, justice requires that I do right in this case. The thing is true or false. I would recommend it to those who would be called honest men, to consider but one thing, viz., what if it should not be true? Can they justify the injury done to that person, or to any person concerned? If it cannot be proved, if no vestiges appear to ground it upon, how can they charge men upon rumours and reports, and join to run down men's characters by the stream of clamour? ”

“ The first time I had the misfortune to differ with my friends was about the year 1683, when the Turks were besieging Vienna, and the whigs in England, generally speaking, were for the Turks taking it, which I, having read the history of the cruelty and perfidious dealings of the Turks in their wars, and how they had rooted out the name of the Christian religion in above threescore and ten kingdoms, could by no means agree with. ”