and yet neither
Mist, or any of those concerned with him, have the least guess or
suspicion by whose direction I do it."

"But here it becomes necessary to acquaint my lord (as I hinted to you,
Sir), that this paper, called the _Journal_, is not in myself in
property, as the other, only in management; with this express
difference, that if anything happens to be put in without my knowledge,
which may give offence, or if anything slips my observation which may be
ill-taken, his lordship shall be sure always to know whether he has a
servant to reprove or a stranger to correct."

"Upon the whole, however, this is the consequence, that by this
management, the weekly _Journal_, and _Dormer's Letter_, as also the
_Mercurius Politicus_, which is in the same nature of management as the
_Journal_, will be always kept (mistakes excepted) to pass as Tory
papers and yet, be disabled and enervated, so as to do no mischief or
give any offence to the Government."

Others of the tell-tale letters show us in detail how Defoe acquitted
himself of his engagements to the Government--bowing, as he said, in the
house of Rimmon. In one he speaks of a traitorous pamphlet which he has
stopped at the press, and begs the Secretary to assure his superiors
that he has the original in safe keeping, and that no eye but his own
has seen it. In another he apologizes for an obnoxious paragraph which
had crept into _Mist's Journal_, avowing that "Mr. Mist did it, after I
had looked over what he had gotten together," that he [Defoe] had no
concern in it, directly or indirectly, and that he thought himself
obliged to notice this, to make good what he said in his last, viz. that
if any mistake happened, Lord Stanhope should always know whether he had
a servant to reprove or a stranger to punish. In another he expresses
his alarm at hearing of a private suit against Morphew, the printer of
the _Mercurius Politicus_, for a passage in that paper, and explains,
first, that the obnoxious passage appeared two years before, and was
consequently covered by a capitulation giving him indemnity for all
former mistakes; secondly, that the thing itself was not his, neither
could any one pretend to charge it on him, and consequently it could not
be adduced as proof of any failure in his duty. In another letter he
gives an account of a new treaty with Mist. "I need not trouble you," he
says, "with the particulars, but in a word he professes himself
convinced that he ha