"The first time I had the misfortune to differ with my friends, was about the year 1683, when the Turks were besieging Vienna, and the Whigs in England, generally speaking, were for the Turks taking it; which I, having read the history of the cruelty and perfidious dealings of the Turks in their wars, and how they had rooted out the name of the Christian religion in above threescore and ten kingdoms, could by no means agree with; and, though then but a young man, and a younger author, I opposed it, and wrote against it, which was taken very unkindly indeed."
The incongruity of the opinion combated by De Foe, with the high pretences of religion set up by the Whigs, was the constant subject of ridicule to the Tory wits. In a poem, entitled, "The Third Part of Advice to the Painter," dated by Luttrell 28th May, 1684, we find the following passage:
Paint me that mighty powerful state a shaking,
And their great prophet, Teckely, a quaking;
Who for religion made such bustling work,
That, to reform it, he brought in the Turk.
Next, paint our English muftis of the tub,
Those great promoters of the Teckelites' club.
Draw me them praying for the Turkish cause,
And for the overthrow of Christian laws.