ted with flying in the face of what he had himself said
in King William's time in favour of prohibition. But he boldly
undertakes to prove that prohibition was absolutely necessary in King
William's time, and not only so, but that "the advantages we may make of
taking off a prohibition now are all founded upon the advantages we did
make of laying on a prohibition then: that the same reason which made a
prohibition then the best thing, makes it now the maddest thing a nation
could do or ever did in the matter of trade." In King William's time,
the balance of trade was against us to the extent of 850,000 l., in
consequence of the French King's laying extravagant duties upon the
import of all our woollen manufactures.

"Whoever thinks that by opening the French trade I
should mean ... that we should come to trade with them
850,000 _l. per annum_ to our loss, must think me as mad as I
think him for suggesting it; but if, on the contrary, I prove
that as we traded then 850,000 l. a year to our loss, we can
trade now with them 600,000 l. to our gain, then I will venture
to draw this consequence, that we are distracted, speaking
of our trading wits, if we do not trade with them."

In a preface to the Eighth Volume of the _Review_ (July 29, 1712), Defoe
announced his intention of discontinuing the publication, in consequence
of the tax then imposed on newspapers. We can hardly suppose that this
was his real motive, and as a matter of fact the _Review_, whose death
had been announced, reappeared in due course in the form of a single
leaf, and was published in that form till the 11th of June, 1713. By
that time a new project was on foot which Defoe had frequently declared
his intention of starting, a paper devoted exclusively to the discussion
of the affairs of trade. The _Review_ at one time had declared its main
subject to be trade, but had claimed a liberty of digression under which
the main subject had all but disappeared. At last, however, in May,
1713, when popular excitement and hot Parliamentary debates were
expected on the Commercial Treaty with France, an exclusively trading
paper was established, entitled _Mercator_. Defoe denied being the
author--that is, conductor or editor of this paper--and said that he had
not power to put what he would into it; which may have been literally
true. Every number, however, bears traces of his hand or guidance;
_Mercator_ is identical in opinions, style, and s