Up to the king's death in 1702 his course appears to have been straightforward; after the accession of Anne he acted a less honourable part. No fault can be found with his design that year in writing _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_, a piece of irony unsurpassed in that age until the publication of Swift's _Modest Proposal_, twenty-seven years later. The satire was at first accepted as a serious argument. The Dissenters were alarmed, and the most bigoted of High Churchmen delighted. Then, Defoe's aim being discovered, both parties joined in the cry for vengeance. He was condemned to stand for three days in the pillory, and was afterwards imprisoned in Newgate. To the 'hieroglyphic state machine, contrived to punish Fancy in,' the undaunted man addressed a hymn which was hawked about the streets, and the mob instead of pelting him with offensive missiles, covered him with flowers. 'Earless on high stood unabashed Defoe,' says Pope. He was unabashed, but he was not earless. In Newgate he remained until 1704, when he was released by Harley. In prison he wrote a minutely circumstantial account of the great storm commemorated in Addison's _Campaign_. How much of Defoe's narrative is truth and how much invention it is impossible to say. The fact that he solemnly vouches for the accuracy of his statements inclines one to believe that they are not to be trusted, for this was always Defoe's _rôle_ as a writer of fiction. His first and most deliberate effort is to impose upon his readers, and in this art he is without a rival. While in Newgate he began his _Review_, a political journal of great ability. The first number was published in February, 1704, and it existed, though not in its original form, for more than nine years. 'When it is remembered that no other pen was ever employed than that of Defoe, upon a work appearing at such frequent intervals, extending over more than nine years, and embracing, in more than five thousand printed pages, essays on almost every branch of human knowledge, the achievement must be pronounced a great one, even if he had written nothing else. If we add that between the dates of the first and last numbers of the _Review_ he wrote and published no less than eighty other distinct works, containing 4,727 pages, and perhaps more not now known, the fertility of his genius must appear as astonishing as the greatness of his capacity for labour.'[50]