A review of the affairs of France : 1705

846 Pages·31.215 MB·English

by  Defoe, Daniel, McVeagh, John

Daniel Defoe
A REVIEW of the Affairs of FRANCE
Volume 2: 1705
Part One: 27 February—July 1705
Daniel Defoe
A REVIEW of the Affairs of FRANCE
Volume 2: 1705
Edited by
John McVeagh
Part One: 27 February-July 1705
LONDON
Pickering & Chatto
2004
Published by Pickering <& Chatto (Publishers) 'Limited
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© Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited and John McVeagh 2004
BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Defoe, Daniel, 1660 or 1-1731
Defoe's Review 1704-1713
1. Great Britain — Politics and government — 1702—1714 — Periodicals — Early works to
1800 2. Great Britain — Social conditions — 18th century — Periodicals — Early works
to 1800 3. Great Britain - Intellectual life - 18th century - Periodicals - Early works
to 1800
I. Title II. McVeagh, John, 1940-
941'.069'05
ISBN 185196794 X
ISSN 1741-7074
This publication is printed on acid-free paper that conforms to
the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper in Printed Library Materials.
Typeset by
John McVeagh
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Cromwell Press Ltd, Trowbridge
CONTENTS OF VOLUME 2
PART ONE
Introduction Vll
Defoe's Preface
A Review of the Affairs of FRANCE
(February-July 1705)
PART TWO
A Review of the Affairs of FRANCE
(August - December 1705) 451
Defoe's Index 831
Index 833
Introduction
The year 1705 was the Review's second year of existence (the volume ran
from 27 February to 27 December). It was also an election year, during which
Defoe steered the periodical sharply away from its original subject of French
history towards English domestic politics. As a matter of fact he had ended
volume 1 discussing trade, not France, and for the first two months of the
new year continued on the same theme, with bankruptcy, workhouses and
the price of wages providing the major topics. But national events, he ex-
plained, disrupted his plan to redirect the periodical towards commerce and
ensured that as the 1705 volume progressed it would focus more and more
on political issues.
As Defoe puts it in the 'Preface', written as he was gathering the essays for
volume publication, he noted early in the year that intense political animosity
was shaking the country and threatening the Revolution settlement. He there-
fore decided, he says, to change tack, sideline the preferred subject of trade,
and try to reduce tension in the land by dissuading his readers from continu-
ing their violent party quarrels and urging them to live together in peace. This
explanation plays down the deliberate planning behind Defoe's switch of sub-
ject and might even be thought disingenuous.1 He doubtless knew from the
beginning of volume 2 that he would be aiming it at the parliamentary elec-
tion scheduled for May 1705, even perhaps that in October he would be ad-
dressing the newly assembled Commons (and their ecclesiastical equivalent,
the members of the Church of England Convocation). These newly chosen
representative bodies, he judged, would benefit from being given advice on
how to think, conduct themselves and vote.
Thus it was that on 22 March 1705, preparing the ground, he suddenly
raised the number of weekly issues of the Review from two to three, giving
himself significantly more space and time to work on his readers. The only
warning of this huge new commitment in time and effort was a brief notice at
the end of that number, which explained that 'For the future the Review will be
Pub lish'd three times a Week, vi%. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays'. Once the
new arrangement had settled in, from 17 April onwards, Defoe set himself in
the words of the Preface 'to exhort, perswade, entreat, and in the most mov-
1 J. A. Downie has argued that Defoe and Harley planned the Review with the 1705
election in mind, dismissing Defoe's Valiant efforts' to persuade his readers that
the periodical would fold after a year as 'a spurious afterthought' and his story of
anonymous backers as 'fictitious' Q. A. Downie, 'Daniel Defoe's Review and
Other Political Writings in the Reign of Queen Anne,' M. Litt. Thesis, Newcas-
tle-upon-Tyne, 1973, p. 77).
Vll
Review, Vol. II. Introduction
ing Terms, I was capable of, to prevail on all People in general, to STUDY
PEACE'.1 With some variation as day-to-day events dictated this peace invi-
tation to the nation — which some readers thought rather stoked up the party
war — lasted through May 1705 and the election period and then continued
into and beyond October when Parliament met. The same theme was still
being rehearsed in December 1705, when the second volume closed. Thus we
have before us in volume 2 a re-definition of the periodical's character and
purpose. Not until volume 6 would Defoe resume trade as the Review's pri-
mary subject, for in volumes 3, 4 and 5, which covered 1706, 1707 and 1708,
it was to be Scottish Union and its aftermath and the French invasion scare
which would take centre stage. Although he did promise to return to his
original subject of French power which had so dominated volume 1 — and
this topic did continue to flit in and out of the periodical in 1705 and later -
return to it properly he never did.
English politics then was the new obsession. Indeed as Defoe handled
them, even the preliminary details of trade, which he discussed in March and
April, were soaked in political considerations. Thus when he attacks the in-
humanity of the bankruptcy laws (3 March) Defoe is not just venting an ob-
session of his own but adding maximum pressure to the moves to re-legislate
on a high-profile controversy which had been exercising Parliament for many
years and would continue to do so. Again, when he laughs at Londoners for
wearing black in order to be like the courtiers, who had to wear black because
the Queen was in mourning (3, 10 and 13 March), he glances at problems
besetting the East Anglian cloth industry which their folly was damaging, and
also at the two East India Companies which were then locked in an unsa-
voury public scandal. Perhaps most politically coloured was his attack on
workhouses (24, 27 March). With this topic Defoe was walking into a political
minefield since the champion of the new workhouse scheme was the High
Tory Sir Humphrey Mackworth, then steering a Bill on the subject through
the Commons. This Bill would eventually die in the Lords, partly because of
Defoe's vigorous opposition, who prophesied that it would have the opposite
effect to the one claimed. Instead of alleviating poverty, it would reduce the
circulation of goods and starve the clothiers (29, 31 March). Defoe is fierce
against Mackworth, condemning him as an economic meddler who 'all Day
pulls his Money out of one Pocket, and puts it into another, frequently drop-
ping some by the way' (24 March). The emphatic scorn with which he dis-
misses Mackworth's scheme would be strange in a mere economic discussion.
But politics being involved, it is not strange at all. Mackworth proposal, De-
foe says, is
See the 'Preface' (p. 2).
vlll
Review, Vol. II. Introduction
an Indigested Chaos, a Mass of Inconsistency and Incongruous Nonsence in
Trade, big with Monsters of Amphibious Generation, Brooding Needless
and Fatal Errors, and Numberless Irretrievable Mischiefs, absolutely De-
structive of our Trade, Ruinous to the Poor, tending to the Confusion of our
Home Trade, stopping the Circulation of our Manufactures, and Encreasing
both the Number and Misery of our Poor. (27 March)
The subject of trade and commerce rumbled on into April, while Defoe
continued to argue against sinking the wages of the poor (3, 5, 7 April) and to
defend the English high wage economy (21, 26 April), and also declared the
suppression of the Irish wool trade indefensible but unavoidable (24 April).
In these early essays of volume 2 Defoe laid down basic economic principles
which he had expressed before and would exhaustively examine in later writ-
ings.1 And though trade was not to be the main topic in the present volume,
he does enforce his characteristic view of the importance of trade in the na-
tional life. Anticipating the later manifestos, Defoe pronounces England
commercial in the grain and dependent for her wealth and the welfare of her
people on a continually rising circulation of goods. This movement of trade is
the life blood of the body politic. It enables the bonding, by marriage, be-
tween the aristocratic and the moneyed classes, which rejuvenates the old
nobility and allows the commoner to rise into the upper class, thus combin-
ing social stability with social progress.
Demands of Goods are made from us; by this our Manufactures are En-
creas'd, our Merchants build Ships, and employ Seamen and Multitudes of
Artizans, Labourers, Tradesmen, &c. in the Equipment and Navigating
those Ships. Thus the Merchant grows Rich, lays up vast Sums, and being
able to give great Portions, his Daughter Marries my Lord Duke's Son, and
in time becomes a Dutchess; and his Son Marries my Lord's Eldest Daugh-
ter, and thus the Tradesman's Grandson becomes a Duke, and my Lord's
Grandson goes Prentice to a Merchant; their Coats of Arms are Quarter'd
Parte per Pale, and Posterity knows no Difference. (6 March)
Defoe spells out the importance of this system because, he says, economic
conditions in 1705 were threatening it. Everywhere trade had declined, com-
merce was under 'a sort of Shaking', manufactures stopped, tradesmen broke,
the poor starved, money vanished, and 'Men look at one another, as if they
expected every Day a General Bankrupsie' (10 March). Abroad was a cata-
logue of disasters, with the Spanish trade, the Turkey trade, the Canary trade
1 For example, A General History of Trade (1713), Brief Observations on Trade and
Manufactures (1721), and A Plan of the English Commerce (1728). For the two last-
named works, see John McVeagh (ed.), Political and Economic Writings of Daniel De-
foe, vol. 6 Trade (London, 2000), pp. 105-114 and 115-341.
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Review, Vol. II. Introduction
and the Russian trade lost or wounded, and Barbadoes fleets missing.
Having got into his stride on the subject, Defoe appeared all set to expand
mightily on commerce and its ills and remedies. But as noted above, he unex-
pectedly thrust it aside in order to focus on the subject of the imminent Par-
liamentary elections in May. He threw one number on peace (17 April) into
the middle of the trade talk, then resumed trade for four more numbers (19,
21, 24 and 26 April), wrapping up and disposing of the topic, and finally re-
turned to party politics (28 April). Party politics remained the subject at the
centre of his attention for the rest of the volume.
This shift in subject is the biggest single difference between the Review's
first and second volumes. In volume 1 Defoe had offered his readers a lively
but somewhat academically designed course of instruction on the subject of
French history and the French rise to power since the wars of religion. Now
he drops this for a sustained analysis of English and British current affairs.
For Defoe, we can say with hindsight, it was inevitable — a gravitational at-
traction towards the modern. He never entirely abandons the historical per-
spective. But instead of marginalising the present to highlight the past he em-
broils his reader week by week in the details of the English May elections.
When the elections were over he trained his fire on the old Tory administra-
tion, particularly the fallen ministers who had led it from 1701 onwards —
among them the Earl of Nottingham, secretary of state from 1702 to 1704,
Sir Edward Seymour, Controller of the Household in 1702-4, the Earl of
Rochester, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1700-3, the Duke of Buckingham,
Lord Privy Seal in 1702-5.1 Defoe was fierce against these leaders and their
supporters, and even after the May election he continued to re-argue the elec-
tion issues. He gave as his reason for this the publication in July of the
anonymous High Church pamphlet called the Memorial, which energetically
put the case for High Toryism, defended the previous ministry, criticised the
new administration of Godolphin and Marlborough and attacked and threat-
I Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester (1641-1711), was the second son of the first
Earl of Clarendon and Queen Anne's uncle. He was made Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland on 12 December 1700 by King William, kept in post by Queen Anne on
her accession, but resigned on 4 February 1703 when the occasional conformity
bill was lost. See J. A. Downie, Robert Harley and the Press (Cambridge, 1979), p.
81. Sir Edward Seymour (1633-1708), Comptroller of the Household and ranger
of Windsor Forest in 1702-4, was dismissed abruptly on 20 April 1704. Daniel
Finch, second Earl of Nottingham (1647-1730), resigned as secretary of State on
29 April 1704 rather than accept the Queen's recent changes. John Sheffield
(1648-1721), created first Duke of Buckingham by Queen Anne in March 1703,
resigned as Lord Privy Seal early in 1705.
Review, Vol. II. Introduction
ened the Whigs and Dissenters (whom it bracketed together as rebels to the
Constitution and the Church). Defoe tore into this publication with relish as
soon as it appeared. Later in the year he kept up the attack by arguing that the
new members of Parliament needed guidance in the early session on how to
conduct themselves in the face of High Church machinations, and therefore
he devoted a string of Reviews urging them to attend Parliament early, to vote,
and to remain vigilant against the enemies of the Glorious Revolution. Since
these issues take us to the heart of English politics in the early years of Queen
Anne's reign, a brief recapitulation of points at issue as Defoe saw them may
clarify the contents of the present volume for the modern reader.
As far as Defoe was concerned, two emergencies faced Protestant England
after the death of King William in 1701 - how to keep the Catholic Stuarts
off the throne and how to protect the Dissenters from persecution by the
Church of England, backed by state power. They were not in fact separate
issues but aspects of one and the same priority: to safeguard the settlement of
1689. Neither the Protestant monarch on the throne nor the religious Tolera-
tion granted to Dissenters after the Revolution could be guaranteed to con-
tinue in 1701. The return of the Catholic Stuarts became more likely than
before when Louis XIV publicly recognised James II's son as King James III
of England (in immediate response to which, England declared war on
France). Equally the religious dispute between Anglicans and Dissenters was
far from settled. In fact on both questions — the monarchy and Dissent — the
Church of England was split from top to bottom.
Geoffrey Holmes has described the 'trauma' suffered by members of the
Anglican Church in 1687-9, when despite all the theories of divine right, the
unlawfulness of resistance and the duty of subjects to endure passively 'even
the illegal exactions of a tyrant',1 most of them resisted James II and took the
oaths of allegiance to William and Mary. A minority - the Non-jurors - did
not. In the ensuing bitter disagreement between these groups, Holmes sug-
gests, may be heard two Churches of England after 1689 rather than one — on
the one hand 'the official, Established Church' and on the other 'the small,
ostracised but none the less influential church of the Nonjurors'.2 Some An-
glicans for a time lived in hopes of a reconciliation taking place if only Queen
Anne, the daughter of James II, might be succeeded on the throne by her
brother. But a new oath of 1702 requiring all Church of England clergymen
1 Geoffrey Holmes, The Trial of Doctor Sacheverell (London, 1973), p. 22.
2 Holmes, Sacheverell, p. 22.
xl
Review, Vol. II. Introduction
to abjure allegiance to James II's son, 'the pretended Prince of Wales',1 made
this impossible. Thus after 1702 the division within the Anglican communion
deepened further. During this period sermons and pamphlets on both sides
of the controversy poured from the press. Defoe was more deeply involved
than anyone, his Shortest-Way with the Dissenters getting him jailed and pilloried
in 1703-4 by the High-Church administration. On the other side the High-
Church champion Charles Leslie exerted a growing influence, being read and
applauded by both Jurors and Non-Jurors alike. Leslie was himself a Non-
juror and Jacobite who had no time for the Papacy but wrote with a view to
reinstating James II, or his son, on the English throne from which he had
been illegally forced. He launched his High-Church periodical the Rehearsal in
1704. This publication proved to be one of Defoe's most important oppo-
nents in the literary war of the election year.
Linked to the doctrinal schism within Anglicanism was the problem of the
Dissenters. How should the Church of England accommodate those Protes-
tants who remained outside its communion? Comprehension had been at-
tempted at the Savoy Conference in 1661, but not achieved, which meant that
the 1689 Toleration Bill initially intended for the die-hard Baptists and Quak-
ers now covered large numbers of moderate Dissenters. Tolerating these Dis-
senters by law, as was now the policy, meant enabling them to stay in their
separate communions without rejoining or attending the Anglican church.
Alternatively, if they attended the Anglican communion once a month — oc-
casionally conformed — they could participate fully in civic life and become
office holders. Since this concession to Dissent could be read as implying that
the established church might now be ignored with impunity some Church
members, uneasy at the growing laxity of a secular age, sought to roll back the
Toleration and re-establish traditional Church discipline over all Protestants.
These fundamentalists, during the 1690s, became known as High Church
men. As a first step they pressed for the recall of Convocation, the ecclesias-
tical equivalent of parliament, which happened in 1700. Its meeting ended in
1701, having been only a battle-ground of High and Low attitudes and per-
haps a means of further crystallizing the attitudes themselves. To quote Geof-
frey Holmes: 'If there were no clearly-defined parties at the beginning of the
Convocation controversy of 1697 to 1701, they certainly existed before it was
over'.2
At Convocation under Francis Atterbury's leadership the High Church ma-
jority in the lower house presented itself as 'the spiritual counterpart of the
House of Commons' and strove to free itself from the more tolerant and
1 Holmes, Sacheverell, p. 23.
2 Holmes, Sacheverell, p. 30.
xll