mind, it was immediately followed by another, namely, whether
Daniel had not more to do than has been suspected with the _History of
Formosa_? Those who are more familiar with Defoe than I am, will be better
able to judge whether he was, as Psalmanazar says, "the person who
Englished it from my Latin;" for the youth was as much disqualified for
writing the book in English, by being a Frenchman, as he would have been if
he had been a Formosan. He acknowledges that this person assisted him to
correct improbabilities; but I do not know that he anywhere throws further
light on the question respecting the help which he must have had. Daniel
would be just the man to correct some gross improbabilities, and at the
same time help him to some more probable fictions. Under this impression I
recently inquired (see "N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 305.) respecting the
authorship of {480} _Pylades and Corinna_, and the possibility that it
might be the work of Defoe; but I believe that my question has not been
answered.

I have already trespassed unreasonably on your columns; but still I must
beg, in justice to a man whose character, as I have said, I very highly
respect, to add one remark. When his imposture is referred to, it is not
always remembered that when he came to this country he was not his own
master. It seems that he rambled away from his home in the South of France,
when about fifteen years old; that he spent about two years in wandering
about France and Germany, and astonishing people by pretending to be, at
first a converted, and afterwards an unconverted, Formosan; that when
performing this second, pagan, character, he arrived at Sluys, where a
Scotch regiment in the Dutch service, under Brigadier Lauder, was
stationed; that the chaplain, named Innes, detected the fraud, but instead
of reproving the lad for his sin and folly, only considered how he might
turn the cheat to his own advantage, and render it conducive to his own
preferment. The abandoned miscreant actually went through the blasphemous
mockery of baptizing the youth as a convert from heathenism; named him
after the brigadier, who stood godfather: claimed credit from the Bishop of
London for his zeal; and was by the kind prelate invited to bring his
convert to London. The chaplain lost no time in accepting, was graciously
received by the bishop and the archbishop, snapped up the first piece of
preferment that would answer his views (it happened to be the office of
c