248 66 ESSAY ON THE HISTORY OF PARTIES," &c. a thin leaf of glittering metal, do you derive comfort from this? Or ought you not rather to see the certainty of what is to come; and that your bondage is made sure to you, by the earnest-penny given you in the beginning?" He tells them, that having learnt wisdom by their former rashness, their enemies will now proceed by gradual encroachments, until they have accomplished their destruction; and that their pretended friends were wheedling them into measures to carry on a temporal interest, at the expense of their religious liberties. To awaken them from their lethargy, he observes, "The slower the poison, the surer the operation; the lingering consumption is most certain to kill; and the toleration, which is the aim of the party, is so much the nearer to its fatal period." Our author justly observes, that the several acts passed against the Dissenters, are not so much with a view to bring them over to the church, as to shut them out of civil employments. Had the former been their object, it would have been best gained by the encouragement of Occasional Conformity: " for this liberty taken by the Dissenters has been the ruin of their strength, the breaking of their principal families, and the indifference of one age has terminated the dissenting of the next. This, the high-churchmen are not ignorant of; but their design is remote from religion. They aim at dividing the interest of the Whigs, which being linked to that of the Dissenters, has been too formidable for them to deal with. But if the low-churchmen can be brought to give up the Dissenters, they shall have the honour of being devoured at last." De Foe tells the Whigs, that they can never resist popery and slavery, which the projects of the Tories are tending to, without the assistance of the Dissenters; and he recalls to mind their past services, in order to blazon their ingratitude. He adds, that the Bill will never answer the ends set forth in the title; but if the Dissenters are true to themselves, it will serve to unite them more firmly, and enable them to CAVEAT AGAINST THE WHIGS." 249 distinguish their friends from their enemies. Our author concludes by beseeching the queen to interpose in this affair, in behalf of a people, to whom she had so often promised her protection. The appeal was in vain; for her bigotry was as incurable as the ambition of her ministers, and was a torment to her subjects throughout her reign. In the course of this year, appeared the first and second parts of a work of singular curiosity, as exhibiting the views and feelings of a genuine Tory, upon the most prominent transactions, during the period that has passed under our review. It is intitled "A Caveat against the Whigs, in a Short Historical View of their Transactions. Wherein are discovered their many Attempts and Contrivances against the established Government, both in Church and State, since the Restoration of King Charles II. London: 1711." The third and fourth parts, which were published in the following year, complete the work, and the whole forms a thick octavo volume. As a register of facts, it contains little but what is to be met with in other works; but it presents a very curious picture of the times, through the distorted medium of the rankest prejudice. The writer was a bitter enemy to the Revolution, and as warm a partizan of the Stuarts. This political bias leads him to' palliate all the steps that were taken to overthrow the liberties of his country, and to murder the characters of its bravest patriots. De Foe occasionally figures in the work as a scribe of the Whigs; and other writers are alluded to, in terms suited to the genius and principles of the author. Although misrepresentation and bigotry are the strong features of the work, yet the excess to which the writer carries his prejudices, disarm them of their force, and render it an amusing specimen of the ridiculous. CHAPTER X. De Foe's Commercial Concerns.—In Partnership with a Mr. Ward.—Who is Driven away from his Town by the Jacobites.—Disastrous Effects of Persecution.-De Foe Attacked by Ridpath.- His Defence of Himself.→ Distractions of the Times.-Conduct of Parties in England.—Measures Against the Scottish Establishment.-Reflections upon the Conduct of the Tories. And of the Scotch Presbyterians.-De Foe's Strictures upon the Measures of Parliament.-He Publishes "The Present State of Parties in Great Britain.”—Account of his Work.-His Answer to the Charge of Bribery.-Tax upon Newspapers.-De Foe exemplifies its Inefficiency.And its Tendency to Impoverish the People.-His Banter upon the Measure. Its Evil Consequences pourtrayed.-Appearance of the Mohocks.-De Foe's Project for getting rid of them.- Malice of his Enemies.-Alarm for the Protestant Succession.-" Hannibal at our Gates."Replied to, in " Hannibal not at our Gates.”—De Foe threatened both by Whigs and Jacobites.—His Answer to Reproaches. 1712. Ar the opening of the year 1712, De Foe was engaged in some commercial concerns, the nature of which remains unknown. Whether it was at this time, or at an earlier period of the present reign, that he was concerned in a partnership speculation in Warwickshire, is not certain; but it was at a time when parties ran very high, and the Jacobites exhibited an unusual degree of effrontery. This circumstance, and his political engagements with the late ministers, seem to point it to the present period. His partner in this trading speculation was a Mr. Ward, DE FOE'S PARTNERSHIP WITH MR. WARD. 251 who for many years carried on a respectable business as a mercer and draper at Coleshill, in Warwickshire. He was then a member of the Established Church, but a Whig in politics, which exposed him to the rage of his high-church neighbours, who, following the fury of the times, raised such an odium against him, as occasioned his business to decline. Mr. Ward was the only Whig in the town; but being a man of a mild temper, and of inoffensive manners, he gained the respect even of his enemies. Unable to move him from his principles, party malignity at length triumphed over this deference to his character, of which the following anecdote furnishes a striking instance. The curate of Coleshill, whose name was Badger, paid a visit one afternoon to Mr. Ward, who had the company of other neighbours. Whilst they were enjoying themselves over a cheerful bottle, the Jacobite priest thought fit to propose for a toast, the health of James the Third, which from prudence and principle, Mr. Ward declined to drink. This irritated the parson so much, that he threatened to drive him from the town; and from that time he lost his business. After this occurrence, the spirit of malevolence was further manifested in the following imprecation written upon his door : "Curse and confusion, hell and damnation, Be to Ward and his generation." The machinations of his enemies at length obliged him to leave the town, and he settled at Nuneaton, in the same county. Whether it was here, or at Coleshill, that he became connected with De Foe, is uncertain; but if it was at the last-mentioned place, it must have been previously to March, 1712-13, when Mr. Ward was still at Coleshill. Their scheme, whatever it was, proved unsuccessful, and Mr. Ward suffered considerably in his fortune by it. The seeds of Jacobitism were sown at Coleshill by Mr. Kettle * Prot. Diss. Mag. iv. 241. 252 DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF PERSECUTION. well, who was dispossessed of the vicarage for refusing the oaths to the government in 1690. Thomas Carte, the historian, seems to have possessed the living at this time, and was zealous in propagating the same anti-revolution principles. Badger was probably his curate. The political bias of the inhabitants was owing principally to the influence of Lord Digby, who owned most of the town, and was patron of the living. Being himself a friend to the Stuarts, he took care to place such clergymen there as were zealously attached to his own politics. Under such instructors, it is no wonder that the people went astray. (B) (B) The folly of persecution, De Foe has strikingly pourtrayed in the following narrative. "A certain corporation town, having abundance of poor, large manufactories, and great trade, was thus circumstanced: the magistrates, mayor, aldermen, and town-council, were all churchmen; the master manufacturers were generally Dissenters, at least, being twelve in number, nine of them were so, and the other three had the smallest business; so that the government of the town was Tory, and the trade Whig. The times running hard upon the Dissenters, the laws were put in execution against them in most places; and the magistrates, pushed on by the parson, fell upon them here also, Two meeting-houses which they had in the town were immediately demolished, many of the people sent to prison, their ministers driven five miles off by the Corporation act, and the chief of the Dissenters prosecuted in the ecclesiastical courts to excommunication, seizing of their goods, and all manner of extremities. A gentleman about six miles from the place, who was a Dissenter, and had a good estate in that country, invited two of the principal persecuted tradesmen to shelter with him, and gave them two houses rent-free in his village; their two ministers he entertained in his house, and there they preached every Sabbath day. The two tradesmen finding themselves easy here, which they could not be in the neighbouring corporation, soon removed their families and working servants, and settled in the village; such of the weavers and other workpeople as were dependent upon them for employment, soon followed, and the poor of the village soon found the sweets of it. In a short time, three more of the masters, with all their et ceteras, followed the example, and in less than two years, all the nine master manufacturers removed, so that the village could not receive the people that followed. Some built houses, the lord of the manor letting them land, and giving them all imaginable encouragement. In the mean time the persecution of Dissenters slackened, and they began to preach openly in the new town. This also drew many from the corporation, and the trade increasing with the people, the village |