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 _régime_ in the first place as an