Queen. The first intimation which the High-Church party had of her
change of views was her opening speech to Parliament on the 9th
November, 1703, in which she earnestly desired parties in both Houses to
avoid heats and divisions. Defoe at once threw himself in front of the
rising tide. Whether he divined for himself that the influence of the
Earl of Nottingham, the Secretary of State, to whom he owed his
prosecution and imprisonment, was waning, or obtained a hint to that
effect from his Whig friends, we do not know, but he lost no time in
issuing from his prison a bold attack upon the High-Churchmen. In his
_Challenge, of Peace, addressed to the whole Nation_, he denounced them
as Church Vultures and Ecclesiastical Harpies. It was they and not the
Dissenters that were the prime movers of strife and dissension. How are
peace and union to be obtained, he asks. He will show people first how
peace and union cannot be obtained.

"First, Sacheverell's Bloody Flag of Defiance is not the way to Peace
and Union. _The shortest way to destroy is not the shortest way to
unite_. Persecution, Laws to Compel, Restrain or force the Conscience of
one another, is not the way to this Union, which her Majesty has so
earnestly recommended."

"Secondly, to repeal or contract the late Act of Toleration is not the
way for this so much wished-for happiness; to have laws revived that
should set one party a plundering, excommunicating and unchurching
another, that should renew the oppressions and devastations of late
reigns, this will not by any means contribute to this Peace, which all
good men desire."

"New Associations and proposals to divest men of their freehold right
for differences in opinion, and take away the right of Dissenters voting