A new periodical, _The Guardian_, was begun on March 12, 1713, and was issued daily until October. Steele wrote 82 of the 175 numbers, and Addison, Berkeley and Pope were among the contributors. The periodical was written on the same lines as the _Spectator_, and many of the papers are excellent, but with the fortieth number Steele was drawn into a political quarrel with the _Examiner_, and the _Guardian_ lost its value as literature. Politics ran so high that the representatives of each party applied to themselves the noble sentiments in Addison's tragedy, _Cato_, which was produced on April 14, and thus united in applauding the piece. Steele had undertaken to fill the house, and he wrote verses, afterwards prefixed to the play, in which he alluded to the fact that he had once inscribed Addison's name to his own "light scenes"; they, however, would soon die, and he therefore wished to "live, joined to a work of thine." Attacks in the _Examiner_ led Steele to complain of articles by "an estranged friend or an exasperated mistress," _i.e._ Swift or Mrs. Manley. Swift denied that he had at this time any hand in the _Examiner_, and a bitter quarrel arose between the two men. In June Steele resigned his position as Commissioner of the Stamp Office, and soon afterwards gave up his pension as a servant of the late Prince. On August 25 he was elected M.P. for the borough of Stockbridge, Hampshire. In the _Guardian_ Steele had insisted that as one of the conditions of the peace the nation expected the demolition of Dunkirk; and this was dwelt upon at greater length in a pamphlet called _The Importance of Dunkirk considered._ A storm of controversial literature followed these declarations, and, in October the _Guardian_ gave place to the _Englishman_, which was devoted almost entirely to politics. Addison said he was "in a thousand troubles for poor Dick," and hoped that his zeal for the public would not be ruinous to himself. Swift wrote bitter attacks--_The Importance of the Guardian considered_ and _The First Ode of the Second Book of Horace Paraphrased and addressed to Richard St--le, Esq._, in the latter of which he suggested that when Steele had settled the affairs of Europe he might turn to Drury Lane, and produce the play with which he had long threatened the town, and which had for plot-- "To make a pair of jolly fellows, The son and father, join to tell us How sons may safely disobey, And fathers never should say nay; By which wise conduct they grow friends At last--and so the story ends."