ragments recently dug up, he
made good sound sonorous bricks, although according to another authority
such a thing was impossible out of any material existing in the
neighbourhood. Anyhow, Defoe prospered, and set up a coach and a
pleasure-boat. Nor must we forget what is so much to his honour, that he
set himself to pay his creditors in full, voluntarily disregarding the
composition which they had accepted. In 1705 he was able, to boast that
he had reduced his debts in spite of many difficulties from 17,000L. to
5,000L., but these sums included liabilities resulting from the failure
of his pantile factory.

Defoe's first conspicuous literary service to King William, after he
obtained Government employment, was a pamphlet on the question of a
Standing Army raised after the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. This Pen and
Ink War, as he calls it, which followed close on the heels of the great
European struggle, had been raging for some time before Defoe took the
field. Hosts of writers had appeared to endanger the permanence of the
triumph of William's arms and diplomacy by demanding the disbandment of
his tried troops, as being a menace to domestic liberties. Their
arguments had been encountered by no less zealous champions of the
King's cause. The battle, in fact, had been won when Defoe issued his
_Argument showing that a Standing Army, with consent of Parliament, is
not inconsistent with a Free Government_. He was able to boast in his
preface that "if books and writings would not, God be thanked the
Parliament would confute" his adversaries. Nevertheless, though coming
late in the day, Defoe's pamphlet was widely read, and must have helped
to consolidate the victory.

Thus late in life did Defoe lay the first stone of his literary
reputation. He was now in the thirty-eighth year of his age, his
controversial genius in full vigour, and his mastery of language
complete. None of his subsequent tracts surpass this as a piece of
trenchant and persuasive reasoning. It shows at their very highest his
marvellous powers of combining constructive with destructive criticism.
He dashes into the lists with good-humoured confidence, bearing the
banner of clear common sense, and disclaiming sympathy with extreme
persons of either side. He puts his case with direct and plausible
force, addressing his readers vivaciously as plain people like himself,
among whom as reasonable men there cannot be two opinions. He cuts rival
arguments to pieces