[65] The first Mercator was published on the 26th of May, 1713; the last on the 20th of July, 1714: and they were written by William Brown and his assistants, with great knowledge, great strength, and great sweetness, considering how much party then embittered every composition. The British Merchant, which opposed the Mercator, and which was compiled by Henry Martyn and his associates, has fewer facts, less argument, and more factiousness. It began on the 1st of August, 1713, and ended the 27th of July, 1714. I have spoken of both from my own convictions, without regarding the declamations which have continued to pervert the public opinion from that epoch to the present times. De Foe was struck at in the third number of the British Merchant, and plainly mentioned in the fourth. Mr. Daniel Foe may change his name from Review to Mercator, from Mercator to any other title, yet still his singular genius shall be distinguished by his inimitable way of writing. Thus personal sarcasm was introduced to supply deficience of facts, or weakness of reasoning. When Charles King republished The British Merchant in volumes, among various changes, he expunged, with other personalities, the name of De Foe. [66] It is now sufficiently known, that Lord Oxford had relinquished the Treaty of Commerce to its fate, before it was finally debated in parliament. See much curious matter on this subject in Macpherson's State Papers, vol. ii. p. 421-23. It is there said, that he gave up the commercial treaty, in compliment to sir Thomas Hanmer, as he would by no means be an occasion of a breach among friends. The treasurer had other reasons: the treaty had been made by Bolingbroke, whom he did not love; the lords Anglesea and Abingdon had made extravagant demands for their support; and, like a wise man, he thought it idle to drive a nail that would not go. Yet lord Halifax boasted to the Hanoverian minister, that he alone had been the occasion of the treaty being rejected. [Same papers, p. 509-47.] [67] He attacked it first in 1713, in An Essay on the Treaty of Commerce with France, with necessary Expositions. [68] It closed May, 1713, with the ninth volume. [69] State of Wit, 1711, which is reprinted in the Supplement to Swift's Works. [70] It _was_ ordered to be destroyed. [71] The late History of Halifax relates, that Daniel De Foe, being forced to abscond, on account of his political writings, resided at Halifax, in the Back-lane, at the sign of the Rose and Crown, being known to Dr. Nettleton, the physician, and the Rev. Mr. Priestley, minister of a dissenting congregation there. Mr. Watson is mistaken when he supposes that De Foe wrote his Jure Divino here, which had been published previously in 1706; and he is equally mistaken, when he says, that De Foe had made an improper use of the papers of Selkirk, whose story had been often published.