How much soever king William may have been pleased with The True-born Englishman, or with other services, he was little gratified probably by our author's Reasons against a War with France. This argument, showing that the French king's owning the prince of Wales as king of England, is no sufficient ground of a war, is one of the finest, because it is one of the most useful, tracts in the English language[24]. After remarking the universal cry of the people for war, our author declares he is not against war with France, provided it be on justifiable grounds; but, he hopes, England will never be so inconsiderable a nation, as to make use of dishonest pretences to bring to pass any of her designs; and he wishes that he who desires we should end the war honourably, ought to desire also that we begin it fairly. "But if we must have a war," our author hoped, "it might be wholly on the defensive, in Flanders, in order to carry on hostilities in remote places, where the damage may be greater, by wounding the Spaniard in some weaker part; so as upon a peace he shall be glad to quit Flanders for an equivalent." Who at present does not wish that De Foe's argument had been more studiously read, and more efficaciously admitted? A scene of sorrow soon after opened, which probably embittered our author's future life. The death of king William deprived him of a protector, who, he says, trusted, esteemed, and much more valued him than he deserved: and who, as he flattered himself amidst his later distresses, would never have suffered him to be treated as he had been in the world. Of that monarch's memory, he says, that he never patiently heard it abused, nor ever could do so; and in this gratitude to a royal benefactor there is surely much to praise, but nothing to blame[25].