When the Tories fell from power at the death of Queen Anne (1714), and the Whigs again obtained possession of the government, only one of two courses was open to Defoe: he must either retire permanently from politics, or again change sides. He unhesitatingly chose the latter. But his political reputation had now sunk so low, that no party could afford the disgrace of his open support. He was accordingly employed as a literary and political spy, ostensibly opposing the government, worming himself into the confidence of Tory editors and politicians, using his influence as an editorial writer to suppress items obnoxious to the government, and suggesting the timely prosecution of such critics as he could not control. He was able to play this double part for eight years, until his treachery was discovered by one Mist, whose "Journal" Defoe had, in his own words, "disabled and enervated, so as to do no mischief, or give any offense to the government." Mist hastened to disclose Defoe's real character to his fellow newspaper proprietors; and in 1726 we find the good Daniel sorrowfully complaining, "I had not published my project in this pamphlet, could I have got it inserted in any of the journals without feeing the journalists or publishers.... I have not only had the mortification to find what I sent rejected, but to lose my originals, not having taken copies of what I wrote."[2] Heavy-footed justice had at last overtaken the arch liar of his age. Of the two hundred and fifty odd books and pamphlets written by Defoe, it may fairly be said that only two--"Robinson Crusoe" and the "History of the Plague in London"--are read by any but the special students of eighteenth-century literature. The latter will be discussed in another part of this Introduction. Of the former it may be asserted, that it arose naturally out of the circumstances of Defoe's trade as a journalist. So long as the papers would take his articles, nobody of distinction could die without Defoe's rushing out with a biography of him. In these biographies, when facts were scanty, Defoe supplied them from his imagination, attributing to his hero such sentiments as he thought the average Londoner could understand, and describing his appearance with that minute fidelity of which only an eyewitness is supposed to be capable. Long practice in this kind of composition made Defoe an adept in the art of "lying like truth." When, therefore, the actual and extraordinary adventures of Alexander Selkirk came under his notice, nothing was more natural and more profitable for Defoe than to seize upon this material, and work it up, just as he worked up the lives of Jack Sheppard the highwayman, and of Avery the king of the pirates. It is interesting to notice also that the date of publication of "Robinson Crusoe" (1719) corresponds with a time at which Defoe was playing the desperate and dangerous game of a political spy. A single false move might bring him a stab in the dark, or might land him in the