Great, Count Patkul, the Duke of Shrewsbury, Baron de Goertz, the Rev.
Daniel Williams, Captain Avery the King of the Pirates, Dominique
Cartouche, Rob Roy, Jonathan Wild, Jack Sheppard, Duncan Campbell. When
the day had been fixed for the Earl of Oxford's trial for high treason,
Defoe issued the fictitious _Minutes of the Secret Negotiations of Mons.
Mesnager_ at the English Court during his ministry. We owe the _Journal
of the Plague in 1665_ to a visitation which fell upon France in 1721,
and caused much apprehension in England. The germ which in his fertile
mind grew into _Robinson Crusoe_ fell from the real adventures of
Alexander Selkirk, whose solitary residence of four years on the island
of Juan Fernandez was a nine days' wonder in the reign of Queen Anne.
Defoe was too busy with his politics at the moment to turn it to
account; it was recalled to him later on, in the year 1719, when the
exploits of famous pirates had given a vivid interest to the chances of
adventurers in far-away islands on the American and African coasts. The
_Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the famous Captain Singleton_, who
was set on shore in Madagascar, traversed the continent of Africa from
east to west past the sources of the Nile, and went roving again in the
company of the famous Captain Avery, was produced to satisfy the same
demand. Such biographies as those of _Moll Flanders_ and the _Lady
Roxana_ were of a kind, as he himself illustrated by an amusing
anecdote, that interested all times and all professions and degrees; but
we have seen to what accident he owed their suggestion and probably part
of their materials. He had tested the market for such wares in his
Journals of Society.

In following Defoe's career, we are constantly reminded that he was a
man of business, and practised the profession of letters with a shrewd
eye to the main chance. He scoffed at the idea of practising it with any
other object, though he had aspirations after immortal fame as much as