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Notes.

DEFOE'S PAMPHLET ON THE SEPTENNIAL BILL.

It is impossible to read Chalmers' and Wilson's Lives of Defoe without being constantly struck not merely by the want of all critical acumen and ordinary knowledge of the characteristics of Defoe's style which they display, but also by the absence of research on almost every point of importance connected with his career. Out of innumerable instances, I may mention his pamphlet on the subject of the Septennial Bill. Chalmers, and after him Wilson, are satisfied with repeating Boyer's statement that Defoe was the author of The Triennial Bill Impartially Stated, London, 1716; but neither of them appears to have referred to the pamphlet itself, and Wilson does not seem to have even consulted Boyer. He observes, "Mr. Chalmers thinks the pamphlet was not his." Whatever Chalmers might think, he does not certainly say so in express terms. The point itself is a curious one; and as it has not hitherto been gone into, perhaps I shall not trespass too much upon your space if I give your readers the results of my examination of it. In Boyer's Political State for April, 1716 (p. 484.), he enumerates in the following terms the pamphlets on the Septennial Bill:—

"A Letter to a Country Gentleman, showing the Inconveniences which attend the Last Act for Triennial Parliaments, which, I am informed, was written by the learned Dr. Tyndal. This was followed with others intitled, An Epistle to a Whig Member of Parliament; Some Considerations on a Law for Triennial Parliaments; The Suspension of the Triennial Bill, the Properest Means to unite the Nation; A First and Second Letter to a Friend in Suffolk; The Alterations in the Triennial Act Considered; The Innkeeper's Opinion of the Triennial Act; and a few others. The only pamphlet that was published on the other side was called The Triennial Act Impartially Stated, &c. This pamphlet was judged, from its loose style and way of arguing, to be written by that prostituted fool of the last ministry, D—— D— F—; but whatever was offered either in print, or vivâ voce, against the Septennial Bill, was fully answered and confuted by the following writing, generally fathered on the ingenious and judicious Joseph Addison, Esq."

Then follows (pp. 485-501.) a printer of a pamphlet, certainly an able one, entitled:

"Arguments about the Alteration of Triennial Elections of Parliament. In a Letter to a Friend in the Country."

In the following 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 followings words:—

"About a year since, viz., when the debates were on foot for enlarging the time for the sitting 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. Boyer, 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 be 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 desire 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 praised 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 judicious 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 commentary on the text—

"And every blockhead knows me by my style."

We can fully accept his disclaimer of The Triennial Act Impartially Stated. It is, however, singular 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 such terms as "that destructive bill," "that fatal bill," as one can scarcely suppose, without entertaining a meaner opinion of him than I feel assured he deserves, he could or would, under any circumstances, 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 (1713, 8vo.), 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, 8vo.), 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 Month 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, &c.), 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 believe to be a base slander, would indeed be well deserved. But it will be asked how, after so apparently 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 supposition that Defoe, in writing from recollection of what Boyer had stated, in the following year, confounded 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 enquiry, 1. Whether