Neither his business nor his failure, however, kept him from the active exercise of his literary powers, which he used in the service of King William with what seems to have been a most genuine and hearty sympathy. Pamphlet after pamphlet came from his pen with an influence upon public opinion which it is difficult to estimate nowadays, but which was certainly much greater than any fugitive political publications could have now. He wrote in defense of a standing army, the curious insular prejudice against which was naturally astonishing as well as annoying to the continental prince who had become king of Great Britain. He wrote in support of the war, which to William was a vital necessity, but which England was somewhat slow to see in the same light. And, most effectively of all, he answered the always ready national grumble against foreigners, which was especially angry and thunderous against the Dutchmen, by the triumphant doggerel of “The True-born Englishman,” the first of Defoe’s works which takes a conspicuous place. In this strange and not very refined production he held up to public admiration the pedigree of the race which complained so warmly of every new invasion, and held so high an opinion of itself. “A true-born Englishman ’s a contradiction,” he cries, and sets forth, step by step, the admixtures of new blood which have gone to the formation of the English people--Roman, Saxon, Dane, Norman. From this amphibious, ill-born mob began That vain, ill-natured thing, an Englishman.