[32] The next paragraph of the passage further explains De Foe's object. "The 'Sermon preached at Oxford,' the 'New Association,' the 'Poetical Observator,' with numberless others, have said the same things in terms very little darker; and this book stands fair to let these gentlemen know, that what they design can no further take with mankind, than as their real meaning stands disguised by artifice of words; but that, when the persecution and destruction of the dissenters, the very thing they drive at, is put into plain English, the whole nation will start other notions, and condemn the author to be hanged for his impudence. He humbly hopes, he shall find no harder treatment for plain English without design, than those gentlemen for their plain design, in duller and darker English. The meaning then of the paper is, in short, to tell these gentlemen that it is nonsense to go round about and tell us of the crimes of the dissenters, to prepare the world to believe they are not fit to live in a human society; that they are enemies to the government and the laws, to the queen, and the public peace, and the like; the shortest way and the soonest, would be to tell us plainly, that they would have them all hanged, banished, and destroyed." [33] At his trial he was treated by the then attorney-general, sir Simon Harcourt, in the style of sir Edward Coke. He complained himself bitterly of the conduct of his own counsel. He was sentenced to pay a fine of two hundred marks to the queen, to stand three times in the pillory, be imprisoned during the queen's pleasure, and find sureties for his good behaviour during seven years! Well may the learned and candid biographer, in the Biographia Britannia, exclaim, "The very infamous sentence reflected much more dishonour upon the court by which it was pronounced, than upon De Foe upon whom it was inflicted." But when he stood in the pillory, instead of suffering an ignominious punishment, he appears rather to have enjoyed a striking triumph. He says, "The people, who were expected to treat him very ill, on the contrary, pitied him, and wished those who set him there were placed in his room, and expressed their affections by loud shouts and acclamations when he was taken down." [Consolidator.] [34] The Hymn was published in 1703, and ran rapidly through several editions. In 1702, before his prosecution, he published a satiric poem on the vices of the age, entitled "Reformation of Manners." During his imprisonment, he continued the subject in another poem, entituled, "More Reformation. A Satire upon himself."--ED.