mischievous part of it, and yet neither Mist nor any of those concerned with him have the least guess or suspicion by whose direction I do it.’ In this case, Defoe was not a proprietor, therefore should matter offensive to the Government slip in, despite his watchfulness, Lord Sunderland is begged to consider whether he has a servant (Defoe) to reprove, or a stranger to punish! The extent of the dirty work done by Defoe is to be seen by his remark that the ‘News Letter,’ the ‘Mercurius Politicus,’ and ‘Mist’s Journal’ shall ‘pass as Tory papers, and yet be disabled and enervated, so as to do no mischief or give any offence to the Government.’ Subsequently, poor Defoe writes, ‘I am for this service posted among Papists, Jacobites, and enraged High Tories,――a generation who, I profess, my very soul abhors. I am obliged to hear traitorous expressions and outrageous words against his Majesty’s person and Government, and his most faithful servants, and smile at it all as if I approved it. I am obliged to take all the scandalous and indeed villainous papers that come, and keep them by me as if I would gather materials from them, to put them into the news; nay, I often venture to let things pass which are a little shocking, that I may not render myself suspected. Thus I bow in the house of Rimmon.’ [Sidenote: _HIS DIRTY WORK._] This is pitiable in the extreme. So is Defoe’s occasional expression of fear lest a paragraph too Jacobitish in flavour, inserted during his absence, should be laid to his charge. He almost servilely entreats to be remembered as the Government’s slave who could not help it, but who is yet worthy of his reward. Besides, ‘it is a hard matter to please the Tory party, as their present temper operates, without abusing, not only the Government, but the persons of our Governors, in every thing they write.’ Nevertheless, as all former ‘mistakes’ of his were forgiven by his former Ministerial Whig employers whom he served as a Tory, he trusts for a continuation of favour, which in his Tory disguise he will constantly endeavour to merit! [Sidenote: _MIST’S JOURNAL._]