ut when urged to the point some
time afterwards, his answer was that formal articles he thought
unnecessary; that he could confide in the honour of Mr. Baker; that when
they talked before, he did not know the true state of his own affairs;
that he found he could not part with any money at present; but at his
death his daughter's portion would be more than he had promised; and he
offered his own bond as security." The prudent Mr. Baker would not take
his bond, and the marriage was not arranged till two years afterwards,
when Defoe gave a bond for L500 payable at his death, engaging his house
at Newington as security.

Very little more is known about Defoe's family, except that his eldest
daughter married a person of the name of Langley, and that he speculated
successfully in South Sea Stock in the name of his second daughter, and
afterwards settled upon her an estate at Colchester worth L1020. His
second son, named Benjamin, became a journalist, was the editor of the
_London Journal_, and got into temporary trouble for writing a
scandalous and seditious libel in that newspaper in 1721. A writer in
_Applebee's Journal_, whom Mr. Lee identifies with Defoe himself,
commenting upon this circumstance, denied the rumour of its being the
well-known Daniel Defoe that was committed for the offence. The same
writer declared that it was known "that the young Defoe was but a
stalking-horse and a tool, to bear the lash and the pillory in their
stead, for his wages; that he was the author of the most scandalous
part, but was only made sham proprietor of the whole, to screen the true
proprietors from justice."

This son does not appear in a favourable light in the troubles which
soon after fell upon Defoe, when Mist discovered his connexion with the
Government. Foiled in his assault upon him, Mist seems to have taken
revenge by spreading the fact abroad, and all Defoe's indignant denials
and outcries against Mist's ingratitude do not seem to have cleared him
from suspicion. Thenceforth the printers and editors of journals held
aloof from him. Such is Mr. Lee's fair interpretation of the fact that
his connexion with _Applebee's Journal_ terminated abruptly in March,
1726, and that he is found soon after, in the preface to a pamphlet on
_Street Robberies_, complaining that none of the journals will accept
his communications. "Assure yourself, gentle reader," he says,[7] "I had
not published my project in this pamphlet, could I have got