“Inquiry into miscarriages in things so famous and so fatal as war and battle is a thing so popular that no man can argue against it; and had we paid well, and hanged well, much sooner, as some men had not been less in a condition to mistake, so some others might not have been here to find fault.  But it is better late than never; when the inquiry is set about heartily, it may be useful on several accounts, both to unravel past errors and to prevent new.  For my part, as we have for many years past groaned for want of justice upon wilful mistakes, yet, in hopes some of the careful and mischievous designing gentlemen may come in for a share, I am glad the work is begun.”

With equal good humour and skill in leaving open a double interpretation, he commented on the fact that the new Parliament did not, as had been customary, give a formal vote of thanks to Marlborough for his conduct of his last campaign.

“We have had a mighty pother here in print about rewarding of generals.  Some think great men too much rewarded, and some think them too little rewarded.  The case is so nice, neither side will bear me to speak my mind; but I am persuaded of this, that there is no general has or ever will merit great things of us, but he has received and will receive all the grateful acknowledgments he OUGHT to expect.”

But his readers would complain that he had not defined the word “ought.”  That, he said, with audacious pleasantry, he left to them.  And while they were on the subject of mismanagement, he would give them a word of advice which he had often given them before.  “While you bite and devour one another, you are all mismanagers.  Put an end to your factions, your tumults, your rabbles, or you will not be able to make war upon anybody.”  Previously, however, his way of making peace at home was to denounce the High-fliers.  He was still pursuing the same object, though by a different course, now that the leaders of the High-fliers were in office, when he declared that “those Whigs who say that the new Ministry is entirely composed of Tories and High-fliers are fool-Whigs.”  The remark was no doubt perfectly true, but yet if Defoe had been thoroughly consistent he ought at least, instead of supporting the Ministry on account of the small moderate element it contained, to have urged its purification from dangerous ingredients.

This, however, it must be admitted, he also did, though indirectly and at a somewhat later stage, when Harley’s tenure of the Premiership was menaced by High-fliers who thought him much too lukewarm a leader.  A “cave,” the famous October Club, was formed in the autumn of 1711, to urge more extreme measures upon the ministry against Whig officials, and to organize a High-Church agitation throughout the country.  It consisted chiefly of country squires, who wished to see members of the late Ministry impeached, and the Duke of Marlborough dismissed from the command