Authors, English -- 18th century -- Biography; Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731
How our author was rewarded by the ministers who derived a benefit from
those services, and from that danger, as he does not tell, cannot now be
known. Before his departure for Scotland, indeed, lord Godolphin, as he
acknowledges[57], obtained for him the continuance of an appointment,
which her majesty, by the interposition of his first benefactor, had
been pleased to make him, in consideration of a former service, in a
foreign country, wherein he run as much risk as a grenadier on the
counterscarp. As he was too prudent to disclose his secret services,
they must at present remain undiscovered. Yet is there reason to think
that he had a pension rather than an office, since his name is not in
the red book of the queen; and he solemnly avers, in his Appeal, that he
had not interest enough with lord Oxford to procure him the arrears due
to him in the time of the former ministry. This appointment, whatever it
were, he is studious to tell, he originally owed to Harley; he, however,
thankfully acknowledges, that lord Godolphin continued his favour to him
after the unhappy breach that separated his first benefactor from the
minister, who continued in power till August, 1710.
The nation, which was filled with combustible matter, burst into flame
the moment of that memorable separation, in 1707. In the midst of this
conflagration our author was not inactive. He waited on Harley after he
had been driven from power, who generously advised him to continue his
services to the queen, which he supposed would have no relation to
personal differences among statesmen. Godolphin received him with equal
kindness, by saying, I always think a man honest till I find to the
contrary. And if we may credit De Foe's asseverations, in the presence
of those who could have convicted him of falsehood, he for three years
held no correspondence with his principal benefactor, which the great
man never took ill of him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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