what ministers her majesty was pleased to employ; my duty was to go along with every ministry, so far as they did not break in upon the constitution, and the laws and liberties of my country; my part being only the duty of a subject, viz. to submit to all lawful commands, and to enter into no service which was not justifiable by the laws to all which I have exactly obliged myself. By this, I was providentially cast back upon my original benefactor, who, according to his wonted goodness, was pleased to lay my case before her majesty; and thereby I preserved my interest in her majesty's favour, but without any engagement of service. As for consideration, pension, gratification, or reward, I declare to all the world I have had none, except only that old appointment which her majesty was pleased to make me in the days of the ministry of my Lord Godolphin; of which I have spoken already, and which was for services done in a foreign country some years before. Neither have I been employed, directed, or ordered by my lord treasurer aforesaid to do, or not to do, anything in the affairs of the unhappy differences which have.so long perplexed us, and for which I have suffered so many, and such unjust reproaches. I come next to enter into the matters of fact, and what it is I have done, or not done, which may justify the treatment I have met with; and first, for the negative part, what I have not done. The first thing in the unhappy breaches which have fallen out, is the heaping up scandal upon the persons and conduct of men of honour on one side as well as on the other; those unworthy methods of falling upon one another by personal calumny and reproach. This I have often in print complained of as an unchristian, ungenerous, and unjustifiable practice. Not a word can be found in all I have written reflecting on the persons or conduct of any of the former ministry. I served her majesty under their administration; they acted honourably and justly in every transaction in which I had the honour to be concerned with them, and I never published or said anything dishonourable of any of them in my life; nor can the worst enemy I have produce any such thing against me. I always regretted the change, and looked upon it as a great disaster to the nation in general, I am sure it was so to me in particular; and the divisions and feuds among parties which followed that change were doubtless a disaster to us all. || the protestant powers, viz. Britain and the States, should have so strengthened and fortified their interest by their sharing the commerce and strength of Spain, as should have made them no more afraid either of France or the Emperor: so that the protestant interest should have been superior to all the powers of Europe, and been in no more danger of exorbitant power, whether French or Austrian. This was the peace I always argued for, pursuant to the design of King William in the Treaty of Partition, and pursuant to that article of the grand alliance which was directed by the same glorious hand at the beginning of this last war, viz. that all we should conquer in the Spanish West Indies should be our own. This was with a true design that England and Holland should have turned their naval power, which was eminently superior to that of France, to the conquest of the Spanish West Indies, by which the channel of trade and return of bullion, which now enriches the enemies of both, had been ours; and as the wealth, so the strength of the world had been in protestant hands. Spain, whoever had it, must then have been de pendent upon us. The house of Bourbon would have found it so poor without us, as to be scarce worth fighting for: and the people so averse to them, for want of their commerce, as not to make it ever likely that France could keep it. This was the foundation I ever acted upon with relation to the peace. It is true, that when it was made, and could not be otherwise, I thought our business was to make the best of it, and rather to inquire what improvements were to be made of it, than to be continually exclaiming at those who made it; and where the objection lies against this part, I cannot yet see. While I spoke of things in this manner, I bore infinite reproaches from clamouring pens, of being in the French interest, being hired and bribed to defend a bad peace, and the like; and most of this was upon a supposition of my writing, or being the author of, abundance of pamphlets which came out every day, and which I had no hand in. And indeed, as I shall observe again by and bye, this was one of the greatest pieces of injustice that could be done me, and which I labour still under without any redress; that whenever any piece comes out which is not liked, I ain immediately charged with being the author; and very often the first knowledge I have had of a book being published, has been from seeing myself abused for being the author of it, in some other pamphlet published in answer to it. Finding myself treated in this manner, I deThe next thing that followed the change was clined writing at all, and for a great part of a the peace: no man can say that ever I once said year never set pen to paper, except in the public in my life that I approved of the peace. I wrote paper called the Review. After this I was a public paper at that time, and there it remains long absent in the north of England; and, obupon record against me. I printed it openly, serving the insolence of the Jacobite party, and and that so plainly as others durst not do, that I how they insinuated fine things into the heads did not like the peace; neither that which was of the common people of the right and claim of made, nor that which was before making; that the Pretender, and of the great things he would I thought the protestant interest was not taken do for us if he was to come in; of his being to care of in either; that the peace I was for was turn a protestant, of his being resolved to mainsuch as should neither have given the Spanish tain our liberties, support our friends, give liberty monarchy to the house of Bourbon nor to the to dissenters, and the like; and finding that the house of Austria, but that this bone of conten-people began to be deluded, and that the Jacotion should have been broken to pieces, that it bites gained ground among them by these insinmight not be dangerous to Europe; and that uations, I thought it the best service I could do the protestant interest, and the best way to open people's eyes of the protestant succession, if I took some course effectually to alarm the people with what they really ought to expect, if the Pretender should come to be king. And this made me set pen to paper again. And this brings me to the affirmative part, or to what really I have done; and in this, I am sorry to say, I have one of the foulest, most unjust, and unchristian clamours to complain of, that any man has suffered, I believe, since the days of the tyranny of King James the Second. The fact is thus: In order to detect the influence of Jacobite einissaries, as above, the first thing I wrote was a small tract, called 'A Seasonable Caution;' a book sincerely written to open the eyes of the poor, ignorant country people, and to warn them against the subtle insinuations of the emissaries of the Pretender; and that it might be effectual to that purpose, I prevailed with several of my friends to give them away among the poor people, all over England, especially in the north; and several thousands were actually given away, the price being reduced so low, that the bare expense of paper and press was only preserved, that every one might be convinced that nothing of gain was designed, but a sincere endeavour to do a public good, and assist to keep the people entirely in the interest of the protestant succession. Next to this, and with the same sincere design, I wrote two pamphlets, one entitled, 'What if the Pretender should come?" the other, Reasons against the Succession of the House of Han over.' Nothing can be more plain than that the titles of these books were amusements, in order to put the books into the hands of those people whom the Jacobites had deluded, and to bring them to be read by them. Previous to what I shall farther say of these books, I must observe, that all these books met with so general a reception and approbation among those who were most sincere for the protestant succession, that they sent them all over the kingdom, and recommended them to the people as excellent and useful pieces; insomuch that about seven editions of them were printed, and they were reprinted in other places. And I do protest, had his present majesty, then Elector of Hanover, given me a thousand pounds to bave written for the interest of his succession, and to expose and render the interest of the Pretender odious and ridiculous, I could have done nothing more effectual to those purposes than these books were. And that I may make my worst enemies, to whom this is a fair appeal, judges of this, I must take leave, by and bye, to repeat some of the expressions in 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 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 indigna. tion 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. On the other hand, I leave it to any considering man to judge, what a surprise it must be to me to meet with all the public clamour that informers could invent, as being guilty of writing against the Hanover succession, and as having written several pamphlets in favour of the Pretender. No man in this nation ever had a more rivetted aversion to the Pretender, and to all the family he pretended to come of, than I, a man that had been in arms under the Duke of Monmouth, against the cruelty and arbitrary government of his pretended father; that for twenty years had to my utmost opposed him (King James) and his party after his abdication; and had served King William to his satisfaction, and the friends of the Revolution after his death, at all hazards and upon all occasions; that had suffered and been ruined under the administration of highflyers and Jacobites, of whom some at this day counterfeit whigs. It could not be! The nature of the thing could by no means allow it; it must be monstrous; and that the wonder may cease, I shall take leave to quote some of the expressions out of these books, of which the worst enemy I have in the world is left to judge whether they are in favour of the Pretender or no; but of this in its place. For these books I was prosecuted, taken into custody, and obliged to give eight hundred pounds bail. I do not in the least object here against, or design to reflect upon the proceedings of the judges which were subsequent to this. I acknowledged then, and now acknowledge again, that upon the information given, there was a sufficient ground for all they did; and my unhappy entering upon my own vindication in print, while the case was before their lordships in a judicial way, was an error which I did not understand, and which I did not foresee; and therefore, although I had great reason to reflect upon the informers, yet I was wrong in making that defence in the manner and time I then made it; and which when I found, I made no scruple afterwards to petition the judges, and acknowledge they had just ground to resent it. Upon which petition and acknowledgment their lordships were pleased, with particular marks of goodness, to release me, and not to take the advantage of an error of ignorance, as if it had been considered and premeditated. But against the informers I think I have great reason to complain; and against the injustice of those writers who, in many pamphlets, charged me with writing for the Pretender, and the government with pardoning an author who wrote for the Pretender. And, indeed, the justice of these men can be in nothing more clearly stated than in this case of mine; where the charge, in their printed papers and public discourse, was brought; not that they themselves believed me guilty of the crime, but because it was necessary to blacken the man, that a general reproach might serve for an answer to whatever he her majesty was pleased to express it in the should say that was not for their turn. So council," She saw nothing but private pique in that it was the person, not the crime, they fell the first prosecution." And therefore I think I upon; and they may justly be said to persecute cannot give a better and clearer vindication of for the sake of persecution, as will thus appear. myself, than what is contained in the preamble This matter making some noise, people began to the pardon which her majesty was pleased to to inquire into it, and ask what De Foe was pro-grant me; and I must be allowed to say to those secuted for, seeing the books were manifestly who are still willing to object, that I think what written against the Pretender, and for the interest satisfied her majesty might be sufficient to satisfy of the House of Hanover. And my friends ex- them; and I can assure them that this pardon postulated freely with some of the men who was not granted without her majesty's being speappeared in it, who answered with more truth cially and particularly acquainted with the things than honesty, that they knew this book had alleged in the petition, the books also being looked nothing in it, and that it was meant another way; into, to find the expressions quoted in the petibut that De Foe had disobliged them in other tion. The preamble to the patent for a pardon, things, and they were resolved to take the ad- as far as relates to the matters of fact, runs vantage they had, both to punish and expose thus: him. They were no inconsiderable people who said this; and had the case come to a trial, I had provided good evidence to prove the words. This is the christianity and justice by which I have been treated, and this in justice is the thing I complain of. Now, as this was the plot of a few men to see if they could brand me in the world for a Jacobite, and persuade rash and ignorant people that I was turned about for the Pretender, I think they might as easily have proved me to be a Mahometan; therefore, I say, this obliges me to state the matter as it really stands, that impartial men may judge whether those books were written for or against the Pretender. And this cannot be better done than by the account of what followed after the information, which, in a few words, was this : Upon the several days appointed, I appeared at the Queen's Bench bar to discharge my bail; and at last had an indictment for high crimes and misdemeanors exhibited against me by her majesty's attorney-general, which, as I was informed, contained two hundred sheets of paper. What was the substance of the indictment I shall not mention here, neither could I enter upon it, having never seen the particulars; but I was told that I should be brought to trial the very next term. "Whereas, in the term of the Holy Trinity last past, our attorney-general did exhibit an information, in our Court of Queen's Bench åt 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 entitled, Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover; with an Enquiry how far the Abdication of King James, supposing it to be legal, ought to affect the person of the Pretender.' One other, entitled, 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, entitled, 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 I was not ignorant that in such cases it is easy to make any book a libel, and that the jury must have found the matter of fact in the indictment, viz. that I had written such books, and then what might have followed I knew not. Where-ironical discourse of recommending the Pretenfore. I thought it was my only way to cast myself der, in the strongest and most forcible manner on the clemency of her majesty, of whose good- to expose his designs, and the ruinous conseness I had so much experience many ways; re- quences of his succeeding therein; which, as the presenting in my petition, that I was far from the petitioner humbly represents, will appear to our least intention to favour the interest of the Pre-satisfaction by the books themselves, where the tender, but that the books were all written with following expressions are very plain: viz. That a sincere design to promote the interest of the the Pretender is recommended as a person proHouse of Hanover; and humbly laid before her per to amass the English liberties into his own Majesty, as I do now before the rest of the world, sovereignty; supply them with the privilege of the books themselves to plead in my behalf; wearing wooden shoes; easing them of the trourepresenting farther, that I was maliciously in-ble of choosing parliaments; and the nobility formed against by those who were willing to put a construction upon the expressions different from my true meaning; and therefore, flying to her majesty's goodness and clemency, I entreated her gracious pardon. It was not only the native disposition of her majesty to acts of clemency and goodness that obtained me this pardon; but, as I was informed, and gentry of the hazard and expense of winter journeys, by governing them in that more right. eous 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 book's 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. any of the persons of the royal family of Hanover, 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. "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 Having given this brief history of the pardon, effectual; and for so doing, this shall be your &c., I hope the impartial part of the world will warrant. Given at our castle at Windsor, the grant me, that being thus graciously delivered a twentieth day of November, 1713, in the twen- second time from the cruelty of my implacable tieth year of our reigo. By her majesty's com- enemies, and the ruin of a cruel and unjust permand. "BOLINGBROKE.' secution, and that by the mere clemency and Let any indifferent man judge whether I was goodness of the queen, my obligation to her not treated with particular malice in this mat-majesty's goodness was far from being made less ter; 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 pablished 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. 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 acknowedging 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 conI freely and openly challenge the worst of my duct of the queen or of the ministry in this case; enemies to charge me with any discourse, con- the question is not what they have done, but versation, or behaviour, in my whole life, which what I have done; and though I am very far had the least word in it injurious to the protes-from thinking of them as some other people tant succession, unbecoming or disrespectful to 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. 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 acknow. ledged 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 bye. 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 However, one thing I must say of the peace, give them the least opportunity to take any let it be good or ill in itself, I cannot but think other measures, but at the risk of their own we have all reason to rejoice in behalf of his pre-destruction; and they ventured upon that course sent 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 in hopes of being able to stand alone at last without help of either the one or the other; in which, no doubt, they were mistaken. |