Chapter 3

"Whereas, in the term of the Holy Trinity last past, our attorney-general did exhibit an information, in our court of Queen's Bench at Westminster, against Daniel De Foe, late of London, gent., for writing, printing, and publishing, and causing to be written, printed, and published, three libels, the one entituled, Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover; with an Inquiry how far the Abdication of King James, supposing it to be legal, ought to affect the person of the Pretender. One other, entituled, And what if the Pretender should come? or, Some Considerations of the Advantages and real Consequences of the Pretender's possessing the Crown of Great Britain. And one other, entituled, An Answer to a Question that nobody thinks of, viz., What if the Queen should die?

"And whereas the said Daniel De Foe hath by his humble petition represented to us, that he, with a sincere design to propagate the interest of the Hanover succession, and to animate the people against the designs of the pretender, whom he always looked on as an enemy to our sacred person and government, did publish the said pamphlets: in all which books, although the titles seemed to look as if written in favour of the pretender, and several expressions, as in all ironical writing it must be, may be wrested against the true design of the whole, and turned to a meaning quite different from the intention of the author, yet the petitioner humbly assures us, in the solemnest manner, that his true and only design in all the said books was, by an ironical discourse of recommending the pretender, in the strongest and most forcible manner to expose his designs, and the ruinous consequences of his succeeding therein; which, as the petitioner humbly represents, will appear to our satisfaction by the books themselves, where the following expressions are very plain: viz:, 'That the pretender is recommended as a person proper to amass the English liberties into his own sovereignty; supply them with the privilege of wearing wooden shoes; easing them of the trouble of choosing parliaments; and the nobility and gentry of the hazard and expense of winter journeys, by governing them in that more righteous method, of his absolute will, and enforcing the laws by a glorious standing army; paying all the nation's debts at once by stopping the funds and shutting up the exchequer; easing and quieting their differences in religion, by bringing them to the union of popery, or leaving them at liberty to have no religion at all:' that these were some of the very expressions in the said books, which the petitioner sincerely designed to expose and oppose, and as far as in him lies, the interest of the pretender, and with no other intention; nevertheless, the petitioner, to his great surprise, has been misrepresented, and his said books misconstrued, as if written in favour of the pretender; and the petitioner is now under prosecution for the same; which prosecution, if further carried on, will be the utter ruin of the petitioner and his family. Wherefore, the petitioner, humbly assuring us of the innocence of his design as aforesaid, flies to our clemency, and most humbly prays our most gracious and free pardon.

"We, taking the premises and the circumstances of the petitioner into our royal consideration, are graciously pleased to extend our royal mercy to the petitioner. Our will and pleasure therefore is, that you prepare a bill for our royal signature, to pass our great seal, containing our gracious and free pardon unto him, the said Daniel De Foe, of the offences aforementioned, and of all indictments, convictions, pains, penalties, and forfeitures incurred thereby; and you are to insert therein all such apt beneficial clauses as you shall deem requisite to make this our intended pardon more full, valid, and effectual; and for so doing, this shall be your warrant. Given at our castle at Windsor, the twentieth day of November, 1713, in the twentieth year of our reign. By her majesty's command.

BOLINGBROKE.

Let any indifferent man judge whether I was not treated with particular malice in this matter; who was, notwithstanding this, reproached in the daily public prints with having written treasonable books in behalf of the pretender; nay, and in some of those books, as before, the queen herself was reproached with having granted her pardon to an author who writ for the pretender.

I think I might with much more justice say, I was the first man that ever was obliged to seek a pardon for writing for the Hanover succession, and the first man that these people ever sought to ruin for writing against the pretender. For, if ever a book was sincerely designed to further and propagate the affection and zeal of the nation against the pretender, nay, and was made use of, and that with success too, for that purpose, these books were so; and I ask no more favour of the world to determine the opinion of honest men for or against me, than what is drawn constructively from these books. 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.

I freely and openly challenge the worst of my enemies to charge me with any discourse, conversation, or behaviour, in my whole life, which had the least word in it injurious to the protestant succession, unbecoming or disrespectful to any of the persons of the royal family of Hanover, or the least favourable word of the persons, the designs, or friends of the pretender. If they can do it, let them stand forth and speak; no doubt but that they may be heard; and I, for my part, will relinquish all pleas, pardons, and defences, and cast myself into the hands of justice. Nay, to go further, I defy them to prove that I ever kept company, or had any society, friendship, or conversation, with any jacobite. So averse have I been to the interest and the people, that I have studiously avoided their company on all occasions.

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.

But such is my present fate, and I am to submit to it; which I do with meekness and calmness, as to a judgment from heaven, and am practising that duty which I have studied long ago, of forgiving my enemies, and praying for them that despitefully use me.

Having given this brief history of the pardon, &c., I hope the impartial part of the world will grant me, that being thus graciously delivered a second time from the cruelty of my implacable enemies, and the ruin of a cruel and unjust persecution, and that by the mere clemency and goodness, my obligation to her majesty's goodness was far from being made less than it was before.

I have now run through the history of my obligation to her majesty, and to the person of my benefactor aforesaid. I shall state everything that followed this with all the clearness I can, and leave myself liable to as little cavil as I may; for I see myself assaulted by a sort of people who will do me no justice. I hear a great noise made of punishing those that are guilty, but, as I said before, not one word of clearing those that are innocent; and I must say, in this part they treat me, not only as I were no Christian, but as if they themselves were not Christians. 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.

I think this will anticipate all that can be said upon that head, and it will then remain to tell the fact, as I am not chargeable with it; which I shall do as clearly as possible in a few words.

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.

1st. That they made a scandalous peace, unjustly broke the alliance, betrayed the confederates, and sold us all to the French.

God forbid it should be all truth, in the manner that we see it in print; but that I say is none of my business. But what hand had I in all this? I never wrote one word for the peace before it was made, or to justify it after it was made; let them produce it if they can. Nay, in a Review upon that subject while it was making, I printed it in plainer words than other men durst speak it at that time, that I did not like the peace, nor did I like any peace that was making since that of the partition, and that the protestant interest was not taken care of either in that or the treaty of Gertrudenburgh before it.

It is true that I did say, that since the peace was made, and we could not help it, that it was our business and our duty to make the best of it, to make the utmost advantage of it by commerce, navigation, and all kind of improvement that we could, and this I say still; and I must think it is more our duty to do so than the exclamations against the thing itself, which it is not in our power to retrieve. This is all that the worst enemy I have can charge me with. After the peace was made, and the Dutch and the emperor stood out, I gave my opinion of what I foresaw would necessarily be the consequence of that difference, viz., that it would inevitably involve these nations in a war with one or other of them; any one who was master of common sense in the public affairs might see that the standing out of the Dutch could have no other event. 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; and for this reason, seeing we had made a peace, we were obliged to bring the rest of the confederates into it, and to bring the French to give them all such terms as they ought to be satisfied with.

This way of arguing was either so little understood, or so much maligned, that I suffered innumerable reproaches in print for having written for a war with the Dutch, which was neither in the expression, nor ever in my imagination; but I pass by these injuries as small and trifling compared to others I suffer under.

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 possession, or so much as to countenance those that would.

Not but that I believe, if the war had been at the height, we should have been able to have preserved the crown for his present majesty, its only rightful lord; but I will not say it should have been so easy, so bloodless, so undisputed as now; and all the difference must be acknowledged to the peace, and this is all the good I ever yet said of it.

I come next to the general clamour of the ministry being for the pretender. I must speak my sentiments solemnly and plainly, as I always did in that matter, viz., that if it was so, I did not see it, nor did I ever see reason to believe it; this I am sure of, that if it was so, I never took one step in that kind of service, nor did I ever hear one word spoken by any one of the ministry that I had the honour to know or converse with, that favoured the pretender; but have had the honour to hear them all protest that there was no design to oppose the succession of Hanover in the least.

It may be objected to me, that they might be in the interest of the pretender for all that; it is true they might, but that is nothing to me. I am not vindicating their conduct, but my own; as I never was employed in anything that way, so I do still protest I do not believe it was ever in their design, and I have many reasons to confirm my thoughts in that case, which are not material to the present case. But be that as it will, it is enough to me that I acted nothing in any such interest, neither did I ever sin against the protestant succession of Hanover in thought, word, or deed; and if the ministry did, I did not see it, or so much as suspect them of it.

It was a disaster to the ministry, to be driven to the necessity of taking that set of men by the hand, who nobody can deny, were in that interest; but as the former ministry answered, when they were charged with a design to overthrow the church, because they favoured, joined with, and were united to the dissenters; I say they answered, that they made use of the dissenters, but granted them nothing (which, by the way, was too true;) so these gentlemen answer, that it is true they made use of jacobites, but did nothing for them.

But this by the by. 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. But there was no medium. The whigs refused to show them a safe retreat, or to give them the least opportunity to take any other measures, but at the risk of their own destruction; and they ventured upon that course in hopes of being able to stand alone at last without help of either the one or the other; in which they were no doubt, mistaken.

However, in this part, as I was always assured, and have good reason still to believe, that her majesty was steady in the interest of the house of Hanover, and as nothing was ever offered to me, or required of me, to the prejudice of that interest, on what ground can I be reproached with the secret reserved designs of any, if they had such designs, as I still verily believe they had not?

I see there are some men who would fain persuade the world, that every man that was in the interest of the late ministry, or employed by the late government, or that served the late queen, was for the pretender.

God forbid this should be true; and I think there needs very little to be said in answer to it. I can answer for myself, that it is notoriously false; and I think the easy and uninterrupted accession of his majesty to the crown contradicts it. I see no end which such a suggestion aims at, but to leave an odium upon all that had any duty or regard to her late majesty.

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. If this be not right, then a servant of the king's is in a worse case than a servant to any private person.

In all these things I have not erred; neither have I acted or done anything in the whole course of my life, either in the service of her majesty or of her ministry, that any one can say has the least deviation from the strictest regard to the protestant succession, and to the laws and liberties of my country.

I never saw an arbitrary action offered at, a law dispensed with, justice denied, or oppression set up, either by queen or ministry, in any branch of the administration, wherein I had the least concern.

If I have sinned against the whigs, it has been all negatively, viz., that I have not joined in the loud exclamations against the queen and against the ministry, and against their measures; and if this be my crime, my plea is twofold.

1. I did not really see cause for carrying their complaints to that violent degree.

2. 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; and if it should be otherwise, I should be very sorry. 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; the crime is my own.

As the reproach of his directing me to write is a slander upon the person I am speaking of, so that of my receiving pensions and payments from him for writing, is a slander upon me; and I speak it with the greatest sincerity, seriousness, and solemnity that it is possible for a Christian man to speak, that except the appointment I mentioned before, which her majesty was pleased to make me formerly, and which I received during the time of my lord Godolphin's ministry, I have not received of the late lord treasurer, or of any one else by his order, knowledge, or direction, one farthing, or the value of a farthing, during his whole administration; nor has all the interest I have been supposed to have in his lordship been able to procure me the arrears due to me in the time of the other ministry. So help me God.

I am under no necessity of making this declaration. The services I did, and for which her majesty was pleased to make me a small allowance, are known to the greatest men in the present administration; and some of them were then of the opinion, and I hope are so still, that I was not unworthy of her majesty's favour. 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; but I can never say it is my fault.

This brings me again to that other oppression which, as I said, I suffer under, and which, I think, is of a kind that no man ever suffered under so much as myself; and this is to have every libel, every pamphlet, be it ever so foolish, so malicious, so unmannerly, or so dangerous, be laid at my door, and be called publicly by my name. It has been in vain for me to struggle with this injury; it has been in vain for me to protest, to declare solemnly, nay, if I would have sworn that I had no hand in such a book or paper, never saw it, never read it, and the like, it was the same thing.

My name has been hackneyed about the street by the hawkers, and about the coffeehouses by the politicians, at such a rate as no patience could bear. One man will swear to the style; another to this or that expression; another to the way of printing; and all so positive that it is to no purpose to oppose it.

I published once, to stop this way of using me, that I would print nothing but what I set my name to, and held it for a year or two; but it was all one; I had the same treatment. I now have resolved for some time to write nothing at all, and yet I find it the same thing; two books lately published being called mine, for no other reason that I know of than that at the request of the printer, I revised two sheets of them at the press, and that they seemed to be written in favour of a certain person; which person, also, as I have been assured, had no hand in them, or any knowledge of them, till they were published in print.

This is a flail which I have no fence against, but to complain of the injustice of it, and that is but _the shortest way_ to be treated with more injustice.

There is a mighty charge against me for being author and publisher of a paper called the 'Mercator.' I will state the fact first, and then speak to the subject.

It is true, that being desired to give my opinion in the affair of the commerce with France, I did, as I often had done in print many years before, declare that it was my opinion we ought to have an open trade with France, because I did believe we might have the advantage by such a trade; and of this opinion I am still. What part I had in the Mercator is well known; and could men answer with argument, and not with personal abuse, I would at any time defend every part of the Mercator which was of my doing. But to say the Mercator was mine, is false; I neither was the author of it, had the property of it, the printing of it, or the profit by it. I had never any payment or reward for writing any part of it, nor had I the power to put what I would into it. Yet the whole clamour fell upon me, because they knew not who else to load with it. And when they came to answer, the method was instead of argument, to threaten and reflect upon me, reproach me with private circumstances and misfortunes, and give language which no Christian ought to give, and which no gentleman ought to take.

I thought any Englishman had the liberty to speak his opinion in such things, for this had nothing to do with the public. The press was open to me as well as to others; and how or when I lost my English liberty of speaking my mind, I know not; neither how my speaking my opinion without fee or reward, could authorise them to call me villain, rascal, traitor, and such opprobrious names.