more
than Defoe's average rate of production for thirty years of his life.
With grave anxieties added to the strain of such incessant toil, it is
no wonder that nature should have raised its protest in an apoplectic
fit. Even nature must have owned herself vanquished, when she saw this
very protest pressed into the service of the irresistible and triumphant
worker. All the time he was at large upon bail, awaiting his trial. The
trial took place in July, 1715, and he was found guilty. But sentence
was deferred till next term. October came round, but Defoe did not
appear to receive his sentence. He had made his peace with the
Government, upon "capitulations" of which chance has preserved the
record in his own handwriting. He represented privately to Lord Chief
Justice Parker that he had always been devoted to the Whig interest, and
that any seeming departure from it had been due to errors of judgment,
not to want of attachment. Whether the Whig leaders believed this
representation we do not know, but they agreed to pardon "all former
mistakes" if he would now enter faithfully into their service. Though
the Hanoverian succession had been cordially welcomed by the steady
masses of the nation, the Mar Rebellion in Scotland and the sympathy
shown with this movement in the south warned them that their enemies
were not to be despised. There was a large turbulent element in the
population, upon which agitators might work with fatal effect. The
Jacobites had still a hold upon the Press, and the past years had been
fruitful of examples of the danger of trying to crush sedition with the
arm of the law. Prosecution had been proved to be the surest road to
popularity. It occurred therefore that Defoe might be useful if he still
passed as an opponent of the Government, insinuating himself as such
into the confidence of Jacobites, obtained control of their
publications, and nipped mischief in the bud. It was a dangerous and
delicate service, exposing the emissary to dire revenge if he were
detected, and to suspicion and misconstruction from his employers in
his efforts to escape detection. But Defoe, delighting in his superior
wits, and happy in the midst of dangerous intrigues, boldly undertook
the task.

CHAPTER VIII.

LATER JOURNALISTIC LABOURS.

For the discovery of this "strange and surprising" chapter in Defoe's
life, which clears up much that might otherwise have been disputable in
his character, the world is indebt