"Arguments about the Alteration of Triennial Elections of Parliament. In a Letter to a Friend in the Country." In the following year, when Defoe had occasion to notice _The Minutes of the Negociations of Mons. Mesnager_, 1717, 8vo., the well-known work which has been so frequently attributed to him, in a letter in the public prints, which letter seems entirely to have escaped all his biographers, and yet is of the most interesting description, he adverts to the above charge of being the author of _The Triennial Act Impartially Stated_, in the followings words:-- "About a year since, viz., when the debates were on foot for enlarging the time for the sitting of the present Parliament, commonly called repealing the Triennial Bill, a stranger, whom I never knew, wrote a warm pamphlet against it; and I, on the other hand, wrote another about a week before it. Mr. Boyer, with his usual assurance, takes notice of both these books in his monthly work, and bestows some praises, more than I think it deserved, upon one; but falls upon the other with great fury, naming, after much ill language, D. D. F. to be the author of it, which, he said, might be known by the inconsistency of the style, or to that effect. Now that the world may see what a judge this Frenchman is of the English style, and upon what slender ground he can slander an innocent man, I desire it may be noted, that it has been told him by his own friends, and I offer now to prove it to him by three unquestionable witnesses, _that the book which he praised so impertinently I was the author of, and that book which he let fly his dirt upon I had no concern in_." This declaration of Defoe, which claims to him the pamphlet fastened on the "ingenious and judicious Joseph Addison, Esq.," and repudiates that "judged to be written by that prostituted fool of the last ministry, D---- D-- F--," will amuse your readers, as it seems to form an admirable commentary on the text-- "And every blockhead knows me by my style."