There remains to be noted a most remarkable illustration of these Jacobite times, in connection with the celebrated Daniel Defoe, the Ministry, and the London press. Five letters written by Defoe, in the first half of this year, were discovered in the State Paper Office, a few years ago. They are inserted, in ‘Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, vol. vi., p. 527-9.’ They are addressed to some official in the Secretary of State’s Office, for the information of his superiors. From these startling documents, sad truths are to be gathered. They make the strange revelation that the author of the ‘True-Born Englishman’ was in the secret service of the Government under whose resentment he was supposed to be suffering. He was giving information of ‘traitorous pamphlets’ to Lord Sunderland. By Lord Chief Justice Parker’s recommendation to Lord Townshend’s Ministry, Defoe had been employed on ‘a little piece of secret service,’ which won for him the subsequent favour of Lord Stanhope. Under Townshend, Defoe, the once ultra-Whig, appeared in the disguise of a Tory. He became chief proprietor of the ‘News Letter,’ a Jacobite paper very hostile to the Ministry. He took out all its sting, to the satisfaction of his secret employers, by writing mild Toryisms in it himself, and striking out all that was vigorous and damaging to ministers, in articles sent in by contributors. At a later period Lord Sunderland retained Defoe in the same questionable employment and rewarded him in the same manner as Lord Townshend had done. ‘With his Lordship’s approbation,’ says Defoe, ‘I introduced myself in the disguise of a translator of the “Foreign News,” to be so far concerned in this paper of Mist’s, as to be able to keep it within the circle of a secret management, also prevent the mischievous part of it, and yet neither Mist nor any of those concerned with him have the least guess or suspicion by whose direction I do it.’ In this case, Defoe was not a proprietor, therefore should matter offensive to the Government slip in, despite his watchfulness, Lord Sunderland is begged to consider whether he has a servant (Defoe) to reprove, or a stranger to punish! The extent of the dirty work done by Defoe is to be seen by his remark that the ‘News Letter,’ the ‘Mercurius Politicus,’ and ‘Mist’s Journal’ shall ‘pass as Tory papers, and yet be disabled and enervated, so as to do no mischief or give any offence to the Government.’ Subsequently, poor Defoe writes, ‘I am for this service posted among Papists, Jacobites, and enraged High Tories,—a generation who, I profess, my very soul abhors. I am obliged to hear traitorous expressions and outrageous words against his Majesty’s person and Government, and his most faithful servants, and smile at it all as if I approved it. I am obliged to take all the scandalous and indeed villainous papers that come, and keep them by me as if I would gather materials from them, to put them into the news; nay, I often venture to let things pass which are a little shocking, that I may not render myself suspected. Thus I bow in the house of Rimmon.’
HIS DIRTY WORK.
This is pitiable in the extreme. So is Defoe’s occasional expression of fear lest a paragraph too Jacobitish in flavour, inserted during his absence, should be laid to his charge. He almost servilely entreats to be remembered as the Government’s slave who could not help it, but who is yet worthy of his reward. Besides, ‘it is a hard matter to please the Tory party, as their present temper operates, without abusing, not only the Government, but the persons of our Governors, in every thing they write.’ Nevertheless, as all former ‘mistakes’ of his were forgiven by his former Ministerial Whig employers whom he served as a Tory, he trusts for a continuation of favour, which in his Tory disguise he will constantly endeavour to merit!
MIST’S JOURNAL.
Even Jacobite Mist himself came into an ‘arrangement’ into which he was frightened by Defoe, as a cautious and prudent Tory. He was made to see safety in rallying the Whig writers, and in admitting foolish and trifling things only in favour of the Tories! Mr. Mist resolved that his paper should in future ‘amuse the Tories but not offend the Government!’ But for such resolution, Defoe assured him ruin and a prison would speedily be his inheritance. Correspondents, in their innocence and ignorance, wrote letters loaded with treason to the ‘Journal.’ Mist submitted them to Defoe, who put them aside as improper; and then, without Mist’s knowledge, sent them to the Government! As for the ‘Journal’ itself, Defoe writes: ‘I believe the time is come, when the “Journal,” instead of affronting and offending the Government, may in many ways be made serviceable to the Government, and I have Mr. Mist so absolutely resigned to proper measures for it, that I am persuaded I may answer for it.’
JACOBITE HOPES.
Such is a sample of the morality of ‘honest Daniel Defoe,’ in matters regarding the London press and home politics in those Jacobite times. The full benefit of what has been said in his defence he is, however, entitled too: namely, that he was a Whig, that he never ceased to be a Whig, and that he sincerely supported the Whig cause and Whig principles while (in the pay of a Whig Government) he passed resignedly for a Papist, a Jacobite, and a High Tory.
There was undoubtedly much active Jacobitism going on in London, throughout this year, of which the Government knew nothing, or despised; probably the latter. They ignored the Cardinal Dubois’s English mistress who served him as his Intelligencer, and they let the fashionable French dancing-master, Dubuisson, carry about his kit to aristocratic houses without molestation, though he was well known to be an agent of Cardinal Alberoni, the friend of the Stuarts. ‘How it was they did not hang him,’ says Dubois, in his ‘Mémoires,’ ‘I never could understand.’
Probably, Dubuisson served the Cabinet at St. James’s better than he did Alberoni, whose ambitious projects had been checked by the death of his ally Charles XII. Yet, at the end of the year the Jacobites in London wore a radiant air. They toasted ‘the Queen’ that was to be, meaning the Princess Sobieska whom ‘James III.’ was about to marry; and again drank ‘High Church and Ormond!’ on learning that the duke was in Spain, preparing with Alberoni for an invasion of England and the restoration of the rightful king.
ART AND POETRY.