asional Bill to a Money Bill when they knew
that the Lords would reject it, and so in a moment of grave national
peril leave the army without supplies. The Queen, in dissolving
Parliament, had described this tacking as a dangerous experiment, and
Defoe explained the experiment as being "whether losing the Money Bill,
breaking up the Houses, disbanding the Confederacy, and opening the
door to the French, might not have been for the interest of the
High-Church." Far be it from him to use Billingsgate language to the
Tackers, but "the effect of their action, which, and not their motive,
he had to consider, would undoubtedly be to let in the French, depose
the Queen, bring in the Prince of Wales, abdicate the Protestant
religion, restore Popery, repeal the Toleration, and persecute the
Dissenters." Still it was probable that the Tackers meant no harm.
_Humanum est errare_. He was certain that if he showed them their error,
they would repent and be converted. All the same, he could not recommend
them to the electors. "A Tacker is a man of passion, a man of heat, a
man that is for ruining the nation upon any hazards to obtain his ends.
Gentlemen freeholders, you must not choose a Tacker, unless you will
destroy our peace, divide our strength, pull down the Church, let in the
French, and depose the Queen."

From the dissolution of Parliament in April till the end of the year
Defoe preached from this text with infinite variety and vigour. It is
the chief subject of the second volume of the _Review_. The elections,
powerfully influenced by Marlborough's successes as well as by the
eloquent championship of Defoe, resulted in the entire defeat of the
High Tories, and a further weeding of them out of high places in the
Administration. Defoe was able to close this volume of the _Review_ with
expressions of delight at the attainment of the peace for which he had
laboured, and, the victory, being gained and the battle over, to promise
a return to the intermitted subject of Trade. He returned to this
subject in the beginning of his third volume. But he had not pursued it
long when he was again called away. The second diversion, as he pointed
out, was strictly analogous to the first. It was a summons to him to do
his utmost to promote the union of the two kingdoms of England and
Scotland. "From the same zeal," Defoe said, "with which I first pursued
this blessed subject of peace, I found myself embarked in the further
extent of it, I me