For the discovery of this "strange and surprising" chapter in Defoe's
life, which clears up much that might otherwise have been disputable in
his character, the world is indebted solely to Mr. William Lee. Accident
put Mr. Lee on the right scent, from which previous biographers had been
diverted by too literal and implicit a faith in the arch-deceiver's
statements, and too comprehensive an application of his complaint that
his name was made the hackney title of the times, upon which all sorts
of low scribblers fathered their vile productions. Defoe's secret
services on Tory papers exposed him, as we have seen, to
misconstruction. Nobody knew this better than himself, and nobody could
have guarded against it with more sleepless care. In the fourth year of
King George's reign a change took place in the Ministry. Lord Townshend
was succeeded in the Home Secretary's office by Lord Stanhope. Thereupon
Defoe judged it expedient to write to a private secretary, Mr. de la
Faye, explaining at length his position. This letter along with five
others, also designed to prevent misconstruction by his employers, lay
in the State Paper Office till the year 1864, when the "whole packet"
fell into the hands of Mr. Lee. The following succinct fragment of
autobiography is dated April 26, 1718.

"Though I doubt not but you have acquainted my Lord Stanhope with what
humble sense of his lordship's goodness I received the account you were
pleased to give me, that my little services are accepted, and that his
lordship is satisfied to go upon the foot of former capitulations, etc.;
yet I confess, Sir, I have been anxious upon many accounts, with respect
as well to the service itself as my own safety, lest my lord may think
himself ill-served by me, even when I have best performed my duty."

"I thought it therefore not only a debt to myself, but a duty to his