been the apparent cause of his disaster." There is no sign of
incompleteness in the _Appeal_; and the Conclusion by the Publisher,
while the author lay "in a weak and languishing condition, neither able
to go on nor likely to recover, at least in any short time," gives a
most artistic finishing stroke to it. Defoe never interfered with the
perfection of it after his recovery, which took place very shortly. The
_Appeal_ was issued in the first week of January; before the end of the
month the indomitable writer was ready with a Third Part of the _Secret
History_, and a reply to Atterbury's _Advice to the Freeholders of
England_ in view of the approaching elections. A series of tracts
written in the character of a Quaker quickly followed, one rebuking a
Dissenting preacher for inciting the new Government to vindictive
severities, another rebuking Sacheverell for hypocrisy and perjury in
taking the oath of abjuration, a third rebuking the Duke of Ormond for
encouraging Jacobite and High-Church mobs. In March, Defoe published his
_Family Instructor_, a book of 450 pages; in July, his _History, by a
Scots Gentleman in the Swedish Service, of the Wars of Charles XII_.

Formidable as the list of these works seems, it does not represent more
than Defoe's average rate of production for thirty years of his life.
With grave anxieties added to the strain of such incessant toil, it is
no wonder that nature should have raised its protest in an apoplectic
fit. Even nature must have owned herself vanquished, when she saw this
very protest pressed into the service of the irresistible and triumphant
worker. All the time he was at large upon bail, awaiting his trial. The
trial took place in July, 1715, and he was found guilty. But sentence
was deferred till next term. October came round, but Defoe did not
appear to receive his sentence. He had made his peace with the
Government, upon "capitulations" of which chance has preserved the
record in his own handwriting. He represented privately to Lord Chief