wife and six children were most to be commiserated, and their distress
was his heaviest trial.

The first use which Defoe made of his pen after his exhibition in the
pillory was to reply to a Dissenting minister who had justified the
practice of occasional conformity. He thereby marked once more his
separation from the extreme Dissenters, who were struggling against
having their religion made a disqualification for offices of public
trust. But in the changes of parties at Court he soon found a reason for
marking his separation from the opposite extreme, and facing the other
way. Under the influence of the moderate Tories, Marlborough, Godolphin,
and their invaluable ally, the Duchess, the Queen was gradually losing
faith in the violent Tories. According to Swift, she began to dislike
her bosom friend, Mrs. Freeman, from the moment of her accession, but
though she may have chafed under the yoke of her favourite, she could
not at once shake off the domination of that imperious will. The
Duchess, finding the extreme Tories unfavourable to the war in which her
husband's honour and interests were deeply engaged, became a hot
partisan against them, and used all their blunders to break down their
power at Court. Day by day she impressed upon the Queen the necessity
of peace and union at home in the face of the troubles abroad. The
moderate men of both parties must be rallied round the throne. Extremes
on both sides must be discouraged. Spies were set to work to take note
of such rash expressions among "the hot and angry men" as would be
likely to damage them in the Queen's favour. Queen Anne had not a little
of the quiet tenacity and spitefulness of enfeebled constitutions, but
in the end reason prevailed, resentment at importunity was overcome, and
the hold of the High-Churchmen on her affections gave way.

Nobody, Swift has told us, could better disguise her feelings than the