was compelled to employ many of them by the rapacious scrambling of his
own adherents for places and pensions. The indirect bearing of this
tract is obvious. In October three pamphlets came from Defoe's fertile
pen; an _Advice to the People of England_ to lay aside feuds and
faction, and live together under the new King like good Christians; and
two parts, in quick succession, of a _Secret History of the White
Staff_. This last work was an account of the circumstances under which
the Treasurer's White Staff was taken from the Earl of Oxford, and put
his conduct in a favourable light, exonerating him from the suspicion of
Jacobitism, and affirming--not quite accurately, as other accounts of
the transaction seem to imply--that it was by Harley's advice that the
Staff was committed to the Earl of Shrewsbury. One would be glad to
accept this as proof of Defoe's attachment to the cause of his disgraced
benefactor; yet Harley, as he lay in the Tower awaiting his trial on an
impeachment of high treason, issued a disclaimer concerning the _Secret
History_ and another pamphlet, entitled _An Account of the Conduct of
Robert, Earl of Oxford_. These pamphlets, he said, were not written with
his knowledge, or by his direction or encouragement; "on the contrary,
he had reason to believe from several passages therein contained that it
was the intention of the author, or authors, to do him a prejudice."
This disclaimer may have been dictated by a wish not to appear wanting
in respect to his judges; at any rate, Defoe's _Secret History_ bears no
trace on the surface of a design to prejudice him by its recital of
facts. _An Appeal to Honour and Justice_ was Defoe's next production.
While writing it, he was seized with a violent apoplectic fit, and it
was issued with a Conclusion by the Publisher, mentioning this
circumstance, explaining that the pamphlet was consequently incomplete,
and adding: "If he recovers, he may be able to finish what he began; if
not, it is the opinion of most that know him that the treatment which he
here complains of, and some others that he would have spoken of, have