The following pithy sentence may give some notion of the general tenor of the latter. “It is very rational to suppose that those who buy will sell, or what seems more rational they who have bought, must sell.” In these pieces the ultimate resort of all power in the people, and the responsibility of the parliament to the people, inasmuch, to use his own words elsewhere, “as the person sent is less than the sender,” are forcibly explained and asserted. The same principles were developed more strongly in what is commonly called The Legion Letter, a remonstrance against certain exertions of the privilege of parliament, by which the subject’s right of petitioning was thought to be curtailed. This remarkable paper, which, though never clearly avowed, is believed to have been written by Defoe, and presented by him, dressed in women’s clothes, to the Speaker, was entitled, A Memorial from the Gentlemen, Freeholders, and Inhabitants of the Counties of ——, in behalf of themselves, and many thousands of the good people of England, to the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses in Parliament assembled; and ends in the following words: “For Englishmen are no more to be slaves to Parliaments than to Kings. “Our name is LEGION, “And we are MANY. “If you require to have this Memorial signed with our names, it shall be done on your first orders, and formally presented.” Of this attempt to intimidate the House no open notice was taken, nor does it appear to have been known at the time who was the author. But any ill-will which the Tories might have against Defoe, if suspected, was gratified by the consequences of a pamphlet which he published in 1702, entitled, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, or Proposals for the Establishment of the Church. In this ironical performance, which ostensibly recommends the total extirpation of Dissenters from England, he intended to satirize the blind prejudices and headstrong zeal of the high Tory faction: but he had the misfortune to raise up enemies on every side. Some of the Dissenters took it literally, and raised an outcry against him as a persecutor: the Tories understood it better, and had influence enough to get a prosecution commenced against him, and a reward offered for his apprehension, by the government. The House of Commons voted the book a libel, and ordered it to be burnt by the hangman. The printer and the publisher of it were taken into custody, upon which Defoe, who had secreted himself, came forward, “to throw himself upon the favour of Government, rather than that others should be ruined for his mistakes.” He was tried in July, 1703, found guilty of composing and publishing a seditious libel, and, by a very oppressive sentence, was condemned to be imprisoned, to stand in the pillory, to pay a fine of 200 marks, and to find security for his good behaviour during seven years. It is in allusion to this that Pope, who ought to