The other side to Defoe’s picture (and there was another side then as now) is shown in verses which, with a few changes, would likewise be applicable to the United States to-day. Defoe is trying to prove that even with lapse of years the English race remains hybrid. “And lest by length of time it be pretended The climate may this modern breed have mended, Wise Providence, to keep us where we are, Mixes us daily with exceeding care. We have been Europe’s sink, the jakes where she Voids all her offal outcast progeny. From our fifth Henry’s time, the strolling bands Of banish’d fugitives from neighb’ring lands Have here a certain sanctuary found: Th’ eternal refuge of the vagabond, Where, in but half a common age of time, Borr’wing new blood and manners from the clime, Proudly they learn all mankind to contemn, And all their race are true-born Englishmen.” In the second part of the satire, Defoe tries to describe the nature of the English, their pride, and their ingratitude to their benefactors. Among the stanzas in which he hits off the faults of his countrymen, the following, more true than grammatical, is among the most forcible:— “Surly to strangers, froward to their friend; Submit to love with a reluctant mind; Resolved to be ungrateful and unkind. If by necessity reduced to ask, The giver has the difficultest task; For what’s bestow’d they awkwardly receive, And always take less freely than they give. The obligation is their highest grief; And never love, where they accept relief. So sullen in their sorrows, that ’tis known, They’ll rather die than their afflictions own: And if relieved, it is too often true, That they’ll abuse their benefactors too; For in distress their haughty stomach’s such, They hate to see themselves obliged too much, Seldom contented, often in the wrong; Hard to be pleased at all, and never long.” Defoe’s satire was a success. Written, as it is, in rough verse, at times little better than doggerel, it is yet always vigorous and interesting. To-day, after a lapse of two hundred years, no verse from Defoe’s pen is so readable. That it was effective in accomplishing the purpose for which it was composed, is proved by the fact that the people, taking the satire good-naturedly, experienced a revulsion of feeling towards the king and his Dutch friends. It was natural that the piece should bring Defoe the increased regard of the king, whose favour he had already to some extent enjoyed. “This poem was the occasion of my being known to His Majesty,” Defoe wrote in his _Appeal to Honour and Justice_; and “I was afterwards received by him.”