printer and the publisher were seized. From his safe hiding, Defoe put
forth an explanation, protesting, as we have seen, that his pamphlet had
not the least retrospect to or concern in the public bills in Parliament
now depending, or any other proceeding of either House or of the
Government relating to the Dissenters, whose occasional conformity the
author has constantly opposed. It was merely, he pleaded, the cant of
the Non-juring party exposed; and he mentioned several printed books in
which the same objects were expressed, though not in words so plain, and
at length. But the Government would not take this view; he had
represented virulent partisans as being supreme in the Queen's counsels,
and his design was manifest "to blacken the Church party as men of a
persecuting spirit, and to prepare the mob for what further service he
had for them to do." Finding that they would not listen to him, Defoe
surrendered himself, in order that others might not suffer for his
offence. He was indicted on the 24th of February. On the 25th, the
_Shortest Way_ was brought under the notice of the House of Commons, and
ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. His trial came on in July. He
was found guilty of a seditious libel, and sentenced to pay a fine of
200 marks to the Queen, stand three times in the pillory, be imprisoned
during the Queen's pleasure, and find sureties for his good behaviour
for seven years.

Defoe complained that three Dissenting ministers, whose poor he had fed
in the days of his prosperity, had refused to visit him during his
confinement in Newgate. There was, doubtless, a want of charity in their
action, but there was also a want of honesty in his complaint. If he
applied for their spiritual ministrations, they had considerable reason
for treating his application as a piece of provoking effrontery. Though
Defoe was in prison for this banter upon the High-fliers, it is a
mistake to regard him as a martyr, except by accident, to the cause of