and enjoy them, without being always going by the ears about them, as we see daily, not only with our governors, but even with one another. A little French slavery, though it be a frightful word among us, that is, being made so by custom, - yet may do us a great deal of good in the main, as it may teach us not to over (under) value our liberties when we have them, so much as sometimes we have done; and this is not one of the least advantages which we shall gain by the coming of the Pretender. . .

There seems to be but one thing more which those people who make such a clamor at the fears of the Pretender, take hold of, and this is religion; and they tell us that not only French government, and French influence, but French religion, that is to say Popery, will come upon us, But these people know not what they talk of, for it is evident that they shall be so far from being loaded with religion, that they will rather obtain that so long desired happiness of having no religion at all. This we may easily make appear has been the advantage which has been long labored for in this nation; and as the attainments we are arrived to of that kind are very considerable already, so we cannot doubt but that, if once the Pretender were settled quietly among us, an absolute subjection, as well of religious principles as civil liberties, to the disposal of the sovereign, would take place. This is an advantage so fruitful of several other manifest improvements, that though we have not room enough in this place to enlarge upon the particulars, we cannot doubt but it must be a most grateful piece of news to a great part of the nation, who have long groaned under the oppressions and cruel severities of the clergy, occasioned by their own strict lives and rigorous virtue, and their imposing such austerities and restraints upon the people; and in this particular the clamor of slavery will appear very scandalous in the nation, for, the slavery of religion being taken off, and an universal freedom of vice being introduced, what greater liberty can we enjoy? . .

But we have more and greater advantages of the coming of the Pretender, and such as no question will invite you to receive him with great satisfaction and applause; and it cannot be necessary to inform you, for your direction in other cases, how the matter, as to real and imaginary advantage, stands

with the nation in this affair. And first, the coming of the Pretender will at once put us all out of debt. These abomination Whigs, and these bloody wars, carried on so long for little or nothing, have, as is evident to our senses now (whatever it was all along), brought a heavy debt upon the nation; so that if what a known author lately published is true, the government pays now almost six millions a year to the common people for interest of money; that is to say, the usurers eat up the nation, and devour six millions yearly; which is paid, and must be paid now for a long time, if some kind turn, such as this of the coming of the Pretender, or such like, does not help us out of it. The weight of this is not only great, insuperably great, but most of it is entailed for a terrible time, not only for our age, but beyond the age of our grandchildren, even for ninety-nine years. By how much the consideration of this debt is intolerable and afflicting to the last degree, by so much the greater must the obligation be to the person who will ease the nation of such a burden; and therefore we place it among the principal advantages which we are to receive from the admission of the Pretender, that he will not fail to rid us of this grievance, and by methods peculiar to himself deliver us from so great a burden as these debts are now, and, unless he deliver us, are like to be to the ages to come. Whether he will do this at once, by remitting most graciously to the nation the whole payment, and consequently take off the burden brevi manu, as with a sponge wiping out the infamous score, leaving it to fall as fate directs, or by prudent degrees, we know not, nor is it our business to determine it here. No doubt the doing it with a jerk, as we call it, comme un coup de grace, must be the most expeditious way; nay, and the kindest way of putting the nation out of its pain; for lingering deaths are counted cruel; and though un coup d'éclat may make an impression for the present, yet the astonishment is soonest over; besides, where is the loss to the nation in this sense? Though the money be stopped from the subject on one hand, if it be stopped to the subjects on the other, the nation loses or gains nothing. We know it will be answered that it is unjust, and that thousands of families will be ruined, because they who lose will not be those who gain. But what is this to the purpose in a national revolution? Unjust! Alas! is that an argument? Go and ask the Pretender!

Does not he say you have all done unjustly by him? and since the nation in general loses nothing, what obligation has he to regard the particular injury that some familes may sustain? And yet farther, is it not remarkable that most of the money is paid by the cursed party of Whigs, who from the beginning officiously appeared to keep him from his right? And what obligation has he upon him to concern himself for doing them right in particular, more than other people? But to avoid the scandal of partiality, there is another thought offers to our view, which the nation is beholding to a particular author for putting us in mind of: if it be unjust that we should suppose the Pretender shall stop the payment on both sides, because it is doing the Whigs wrong, since the Tories, who perhaps, being chiefly landed men, pay the most taxes; then, to keep up a just balance, he need only continue the taxes to be paid in, and only stop the annuities and interest which are to be paid out. Thus both sides having no reason to envy or reproach one another with hardships, or with suffering unequally, they may every one lose in proportion, and the money may be laid up in the hands of the new sovereign, for the good of the nation. .

canon,

This amassing of treasure, by the stopping the funds on one hand, and the receiving the taxes on the other, will effectually enable the Pretender to set up and effectually maintain that glorious and so often desired method of government, au coup de Anglice, a standing army. . . . Then we should see a new face of our nation, and Britain would be no more a naked nation, as it has formerly been; then we should have numerous and gallant armies surrounding a martial prince, ready to make the world, as well as his own subjects, tremble. Then our inland counties would appear full of royal fortifications, citadels, forts, and strong towns, the beauty of the kingdom, and awe of factious rebels. It is a strange thing that this refractory people of ours could never be made sensible how much it is for the glory and safety of this nation that we should be put into a posture of defence against ourselves. It has been often alleged that this nation can never be ruined but with their own consent: if then we are our own enemies, is it not highly requisite that we should be put in a position to have our own ruin prevented? And that, since it is apparent we are no more fit to be trusted with our own liberties, having a natural and a national propen

sity to destroy and undo ourselves, and may be brought to consent to our own ruin, we should have such princes as for the future know how to restrain us; and how reasonable is it to allow them forces to do so! . . .

This sums up the happiness of the Pretender's reign. We need not talk of security, as the Review has done, and pretend he is not able to give us security for the performance of anything he promises. Every man that has any sense of the principles, honor, and justice of the Pretender, his zeal for the Roman Catholic cause, his gratitude to his benefactor, the French King, and his love to the glory and happiness of his native country, must rest satisfied of his punctually performing all these great things for us. To ask him security would be not to affront him only, but to affront the whole nation; no man can doubt him; the nature of the thing allows that he must do us all that kindness; he cannot be true to his own reason without it. Wherefore this treaty executes itself, and appears so rational to believe, that whoever doubts it may be supposed to doubt even the veracity of James the Just.

A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR

BEING OBSERVATIONS OR MEMORIALS OF THE MOST REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES, AS WELL PUBLIC AS PRIVATE, WHICH HAPPENED IN LONDON DURING THE LAST GREAT VISITATION IN 1665

WRITTEN BY A CITIZEN WHO CONTINUED ALL THE WHILE IN LONDON. NEVER MADE PUBLIC BEFORE

[This work is the most famous

1722

unless we regard Robinson Crusoe as of the same class - of the fictitious narratives which Defoe issued under the guise of personal memoirs. It appeared at the time when a recurrence of the plague was feared, and seemed so authentic that at a later time it was quoted as an authority by Dr. Mead, who had been appointed to make a report on precautions in the interest of the public health. The Journal is not divided into chapters or sections; the extracts here given will be found on pages 11-18, 75-80, and 102-104 of the Temple edition.]

I NOW began to consider seriously with myself concerning my own case, and how I should dispose of myself; that is to say,

whether I should resolve to stay in London or shut up my house and flee, as many of my neighbors did. I have set this particular down so fully, because I know not but it may be of moment to those who come after me, if they come to be brought to the same distress, and to the same manner of making their choice; and therefore I desire this account may pass with them rather for a direction to themselves to act by than a history of my actings, seeing it may not be of one farthing value to them to note what became of me.

I had two important things before me: the one was the carrying on my business and shop, which was considerable, and in which was embarked all my effects in the world; and the other was the preservation of my life in so dismal a calamity as I saw apparently was coming upon the whole city, and which, however great it was, my fears perhaps, as well as other people's, represented to be much greater than it could be.

The first consideration was of great moment to me. My trade was a saddler, and as my dealings were chiefly not by a shop or chance trade, but among the merchants trading to the English colonies in America, so my effects lay very much in the hands of such. I was a single man, 't is true, but I had a family of servants whom I kept at my business; had a house, shop, and warehouses filled with goods; and, in short, to leave them all as things in such a case must be left, that is to say, without any overseer or person fit to be trusted with them, had been to hazard the loss not only of my trade, but of my goods, and indeed of all I had in the world.

I had an elder brother at the same time in London, and not many years before come over from Portugal, and advising with him, his answer was in three words, the same that was given in another case quite different, viz., "Master, save thyself." In a word, he was for my retiring into the country, as he resolved to do himself with his family; telling me what he had, it seems, heard abroad - that the best preparation for the plague was to run away from it. As to my argument of losing my trade, my goods, or debts, he quite confuted me. He told me the same thing which I argued for my staying, viz., that I would trust God with my safety and health, was the strongest repulse to my pretensions of losing my trade and my goods. "For," says he, "is it not as reasonable that you should trust God with the