slight, or from no other motive than a desire to be safe, if by any
chance the sceptre should again change hands. Under Anne he had seen
Whig turn Tory and Tory turn Whig, and had seen statesmen of the highest
rank hold out one hand to Hanover and another to St. Germains. The most
single-minded man he had met had been King William himself, and of his
memory he always spoke with the most affectionate honour. Shifty as
Defoe was, and admirably as he used his genius for circumstantial
invention to cover his designs, there was no other statesman of his
generation who remained more true to the principles of the Revolution,
and to the cause of civil and religious freedom. No other public man saw
more clearly what was for the good of the country, or pursued it more
steadily. Even when he was the active servant of Harley, and turned
round upon men who regarded him as their own, the part which he played
was to pave the way for his patron's accession to office under the House
of Hanover. Defoe did as much as any one man, partly by secret intrigue,
partly through the public press, perhaps as much as any ten men outside
those in the immediate direction of affairs, to accomplish the two great
objects which William bequeathed to English statesmanship--the union of
England and Scotland, and the succession to the United Kingdom of a
Protestant dynasty. Apart from the field of high politics, his powerful
advocacy was enlisted in favour of almost every practicable scheme of
social improvement that came to the front in his time. Defoe cannot be
held up as an exemplar of moral conduct, yet if he is judged by the
measures that he laboured for and not by the means that he employed, few
Englishmen have lived more deserving than he of their country's
gratitude. He may have been self-seeking and vain-glorious, but in his
political life self-seeking and vain-glory were elevated by their
alliance with higher and wider aims. Defoe was a wonderful mixture of
knave and patriot. Sometimes pure knave seems to be uppermost, sometimes
pure patriot; but the mixture is so complex, and the energy of the man