is resignation of the simple
single-minded patriot to the pains and penalties of honesty, naturally
added to the rage of the party with whose factious proceedings he would
have nothing to do; and yet it has always been thought an extraordinary
instance of party spite that the Whigs should have instituted a
prosecution against him, on the alleged ground that a certain remarkable
series of Tracts were written in favour of the Pretender. Towards the
end of 1712 Defoe had issued _A Seasonable Warning and Caution against
the Insinuations of Papists and Jacobites in favour of the Pretender_.
No charge of Jacobitism could be made against a pamphlet containing such
a sentence as this:--

"Think, then, dear Britons! what a King this Pretender
must be! a papist by inclination; a tyrant by education; a
Frenchman by honour and obligation;--and how long will
your liberties last you in this condition? And when your
liberties are gone, how long will your religion remain?
When your hands are tied; when armies bind you; when
power oppresses you; when a tyrant disarms you; when a
Popish French tyrant reigns over you; by what means or
methods can you pretend to maintain your Protestant religion?"

A second pamphlet, _Hannibal at the Gates_, strongly urging party union
and the banishment of factious spirit, was equally unmistakable in tone.
The titles of the following three of the series were more
startling:--_Reasons against the Succession of the House of
Hanover_--_And what if the Pretender should come? or Some considerations
of the advantages and real consequences of the Pretender's possessing
the Crown of Great Britain_--_An Answer to a Question that nobody thinks
of, viz. But what if the Queen should die?_ The contents, however, were
plainly ironical. The main reason against the Succession of the Prince
of Hanover was that it might be wise for the nation to take a short turn
of a French, Popish, hereditary-right _regime_ in the first place as an
emetic. Emetics were good for the health of individuals, and there could
be no better preparative for a healthy constitutional government than
another experience of arbitrary power. Defoe had used the same ironical
argument for putting Tories in office in 1708. The advantages of the
Pretender's possessing the Crown were that we should be saved from all
further danger of a war with France, and should no longer hold the
exposed position of a Protestant State among th