us in the
circumstances to send the Camisards the least relief.

There is no reference in the _Review_ to Defoe's release from prison.
Two numbers a week were issued with the same punctuality before and
after, and there is no perceptible difference either in tone or in plan.
Before he left prison, and before the fall of the high Tory Ministers,
he had thrown in his lot boldly with the moderate men, and he did not
identify himself more closely with any political section after Harley
and Godolphin recognized the value of his support and gave him liberty
and pecuniary help. In the first number of the _Review_ he had declared
his freedom from party ties, and his unreserved adherence to truth and
the public interest, and he made frequent protestation of this
independence. "I am not a party man," he kept saying; "at least, I
resolve this shall not be a party paper." In discussing the affairs of
France, he took more than one side-glance homewards, but always with the
protest that he had no interest to serve but that of his country. The
absolute power of Louis, for example, furnished him with an occasion for
lamenting the disunited counsels of Her Majesty's Cabinet. Without
imitating the despotic form of the French Government, he said, there are
ways by which we might secure under our own forms greater decision and
promptitude on the part of the Executive. When Nottingham was dismissed,
he rejoiced openly, not because the ex-Secretary had been his
persecutor, but because at last there was unity of views among the
Queen's Ministers. He joined naturally in the exultation over
Marlborough's successes, but in the _Review_, and in his _Hymn to
Victory_, separately published, he courteously diverted some part of the
credit to the new Ministry. "Her Majesty's measures, moved by new and
polished councils, have been pointed more directly at the root of the
French power than ever we have seen before. I hope no man will suppose I
reflect on the memory of King William; I know 'tis impossible the Queen
should more sincerely wish the reduction of France than his late
Majesty; but if it is expected I should say he was not worse served,
oftener betrayed, and consequently hurried into more mistakes and
disasters, than Her Majesty now is, this must be by somebody who
believes I know much less of the public matters of those days than I had
the honour to be informed of." But this praise, he represented, was not
the praise of a partisan; it was an