Accountant to the Commissioners of the Glass Duty, and held this post
till the duty was abolished in 1699.

From 1694 to the end of William's reign was the most prosperous and
honourable period in Defoe's life. His services to the Government did
not absorb the whole of his restless energy; He still had time for
private enterprise, and started a manufactory of bricks and pantiles at
Tilbury, where, Mr. Lee says, judging from fragments recently dug up, he
made good sound sonorous bricks, although according to another authority
such a thing was impossible out of any material existing in the
neighbourhood. Anyhow, Defoe prospered, and set up a coach and a
pleasure-boat. Nor must we forget what is so much to his honour, that he
set himself to pay his creditors in full, voluntarily disregarding the
composition which they had accepted. In 1705 he was able, to boast that
he had reduced his debts in spite of many difficulties from 17,000£. to
5,000£., but these sums included liabilities resulting from the failure
of his pantile factory.

Defoe's first conspicuous literary service to King William, after he
obtained Government employment, was a pamphlet on the question of a
Standing Army raised after the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. This Pen and
Ink War, as he calls it, which followed close on the heels of the great
European struggle, had been raging for some time before Defoe took the
field. Hosts of writers had appeared to endanger the permanence of the
triumph of William's arms and diplomacy by demanding the disbandment of
his tried troops, as being a menace to domestic liberties. Their
arguments had been encountered by no less zealous champions of the
King's cause. The battle, in fact, had been won when Defoe issued his
_Argument showing that a Standing Army, with consent of Parliament, is
not inconsistent with a Free Government_. He was able to boast in his