678 



T fj- KOTES AND QUEEIES. 



[No. 138. 



Then follows (pp. 485 — 501.) a printer of a 

 pamphlet, certainly an able one, entitled : 



" Arguments about the Alteration of Triennial Elec- 

 tions of Parliament. In a Letter to a Friend in the 

 Country." 



In the followlnof year, when Defoe had occasion 

 to notice The Minutes of the Negociations of 

 Mons. Mesnager, 1717, 8vo., the well-known 

 work which has been so frequently attributed to 

 him, in a letter in the public prints, which letter 

 seems entirely to have escaped all his biographers, 

 and yet is of the most interesting description, he 

 adverts to the above charge of being the author 

 of The Triennial Act Impartially Stated, in the 

 following words : — 



" About a year since, viz., when the debates were on 

 foot for enlarging the time for the sittir;g of the present 

 Parliament, commonly called repealing the Triennial 

 Bill, a stranger, whom I never knew, wrote a warm 

 pamphlet against it ; and I, on the other hand, wrote 

 another about a week before it. Mr. Boytr, with his 

 usual assurance, takes notice of both these books in his 

 monthly work, and bestows some praises, more than I 

 think it deserved, upon one ; but falls upon the other 

 with great fury, naming, after much ill language, 

 D. D. F. to be the author of it, which, he said, might 

 i)e known by the inconsistency of the style, or to that 

 -effect. Now that the world may see what a judge 

 this Frenchman is of the English style, and upon what 

 slender ground he can slander an innocent man, I de- 

 sire it may be noted, that it has been told him by his 

 own friends, and I offer now to prove it to him by 

 three unquestionable witnesses, that the book which he 

 jtraised so impertinently I was the author of, and that 

 book which he let fly his dirt upon I had no concern in." 



This declaration of Defoe, which claims to him 

 the pamphlet fastened on the " ingenious and judi- 

 cious Joseph Addison, Esq.," and repudiates that 

 ^'judged to be written by that prostituted fool of 



the last ministry, D D — F— ," will amuse your 



readers, as it seems to form an admirable commen- 

 tary on the text — 



" And every blockhead knows me by my style." 

 We can fully accept his disclaimer of The Tri- 

 ennial Act Impartially Stated. If is, however, sin- 

 gular enough that the style of the Arguments about 

 the Alteration of Triennial Elections of Parliament, 

 without attaching too much importance to that 

 criterion, is not the style of Defoe ; and the Bill 

 of Commerce with France is denounced in it in 

 stich terms as "that destructive bill," "that fatal 

 bill," as one can scarcely suppose, without enter- 

 taining a meaner opinion of him than I feel assured 

 he deserves, he could or would, under any circum- 

 stances, have made use of. To carry this Bill of 

 Commerce he exerted all his great powers as a 

 ■writer, and supported it in the Review and the 

 Mercator, in the Essay on the Treaty of Commerce 

 with France (171^, Svo.), and in two other tracts, 

 both of which were unknown to Chalmers and 



Wilson, and have never been noticed or included 

 in the list of his works, namely. Some Thoughts 

 upon the Subject of Commerce with France : by the 

 Author of the Review (Baker, 1713, Svo.), and 

 A general History of Trade, in which an Attempt is 

 made to state and moderate the present Disputes 

 about settling a Commerce between Great Britain 

 and France for the MoJith of September (Baker, 

 1713) ; being the fourth Number of the History of 

 Trade, which Wilson says " extended only to two 

 Numbers" (vol. iii. p. 339.). In the Appeal to 

 Honour and Justice, published only the year before 

 (1715), he supports the same cause with all his 

 strength. He vindicates the part he had taken, 

 and says — 



" This was my opinion, and is so still ; and I would 

 venture to maintain it against any man upon a public 

 stage, before a jury of fifty merchants, and venture my 

 life upon the cause, if I were assured of fair play in the 

 dispute." — Works, edit. 1841, vol. xx. p. 43. 



His opinion on the policy of the bill, as appears 

 by all his subsequent commercial works, never 

 changed : and that he could so speak of it in this 

 pamphlet (^Arguments about the Alteration, Sfci), 

 supposing it to be his, seems almost incredible. I 

 feel convinced that no other similar instance can 

 be found, during the whole of his career, in 

 which he can be shown to express himself with 

 such a total disregard of his avowed opinions 

 and his honest convictions. Were it certain that 

 he had done so, then the character which the 

 Tolands, Oldmixons, and Boyers have given of 

 him, as ready to take up any cause for hire, and as 

 the prostituted agent of a party, and which I be- 

 lieve to be a base slander, would indeed be well 

 deserved. But it will be asked how, after so ap- 

 parently distinct and explicit an avowal, can it be 

 doubted that he was the author of the pamphlet in 

 question ? I can only account for it on the sup- 

 position tljat Djsfoe, in writing from recollection of 

 what Boyer had stated, in the following year, con- 

 founded the pamphlet praised with one of the 

 pamphlets noticed. It appears to me that one of 

 them, the full title of which is Some Considerations 

 on a Law for Triennial Parliaments, with an en- 

 quiry, 1. Whether there may not be a time when it 

 is necessary to suspend the execution even of such 

 Laws as are most essential to the Libei'ties of the 

 People? 2. Whether this is such a time or no'f 

 (London, printed for J. Baker and T. Warner, at 

 the Black Boy, in Paternoster Row, 1716, pp. 40.), 

 and which is noticed in Boyer's list, has infinitely 

 more both of Defoe's style and manner of treating 

 a subject than the other pamphlet. I entertain 

 no doubt that it was written by him, though it has 

 never hitlierto been attributed to him ; and it is 

 far from being unlikely that his recollection may 

 have deceived him, and that he may have thought 

 that Boyer's praise applied to this pamphlet, 

 written on the same side, and not to the other. . It 



