d now is owner of a brick and
pantile works near Tilbury-fort, in Essex. Whoever shall discover
the said Daniel De Foe to any of her Majesty's principal Secretaries
of State, or any of Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace, so as he
may be apprehended, shall have a reward of fifty pounds, which Her
Majesty has ordered immediately to be paid upon such discovery."
He managed to keep out of the way of the authorities, but on hearing
that the printer and publisher of the pamphlet were put into prison, he
gave himself up, and they were set at liberty. Defoe was tried at the
Old Bailey, in July, 1704, and pleaded guilty. It is said that he put in
this plea on the promise of pardon secretly given to him. He did not,
however, escape punishment; he was fined two hundred marks, and ordered
to appear three times in the pillory, and remain in prison during the
Queen's pleasure.
During his imprisonment before being placed in the pillory, he wrote the
famous "Hymn to the Pillory," which was speedily put into type and sung
by the crowd at the time Defoe was in the machine. Here are some lines
from it:
Hail hieroglyphic State machine,
Contrived to punish fancy in:
Men that are men in thee can feel no pain,
And all thy insignificants disdain;
Contempt, that false new word for shame,
Is, without crime, an empty name;
A shadow to amuse mankind,
But ne'er to fright the wise or well-fixed mind.
Virtue despises human scorn!
. . .
Even learned Selden saw
A prospect of thee through the law.
He had thy lofty pinnacles in view,
But so much honour never was thy due.
The first intent of laws
Was to correct the effect, and check the cause,
And all the ends of punishment
Were only future mischiefs to prevent.
But justice is interverted when
Those engines of the law,
Instead of pinching vicious men,
Keep honest ones in awe.
. . .
Tell them the men that placed him there
Are friends unto the times;
But at a loss to find his guilt,
And can't commit his crimes.
Defoe fared well in the pillory. He was not pelted with rotten eggs, but
with flowers; and beautiful garlands were suspended from the pillory. In
a modest manner, he gave an account of the affair. "The people," he
wrote, "were expected to treat me very ill, but it was not so. On the
contrary, they were with me--wis
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