still, and be very well satisfied that I had not discovered myself to him, for it was not our season yet.”  The anecdote at once shows the general opinion entertained of Defoe, and the fact that he was less corruptible than was supposed.  There can be little doubt that our astute intriguer would have outwitted the French emissary if he had not been warned in time, pocketed his bribes, and wormed his secrets out of him for the information of the Government.

[Footnote 2:  I doubt whether it adds to the credibility of the story in all points that the minutes of M. Mesnager’s Negotiations were “translated,” and probably composed by Defoe himself.  See p. 136.]

During Godolphin’s Ministry, Defoe’s cue had been to reason with the nation against too impatient a longing for peace.  Let us have peace by all means, had been his text, but not till honourable terms have been secured, and mean-time the war is going on as prosperously as any but madmen can desire.  He repeatedly challenged adversaries who compared what he wrote then with what he wrote under the new Ministry, to prove him guilty of inconsistency.  He stood on safe ground when he made this challenge, for circumstances had changed sufficiently to justify any change of opinion.  The plans of the Confederates were disarranged by the death of the Emperor, and the accession of his brother, the Archduke Charles, to the vacant crown.  To give the crown of Spain in these new circumstances to the Archduke, as had been the object of the Allies when they began the war, would have been as dangerous to the balance of power as to let Spain pass to Louis’s grandson, Philip of Anjou.  It would be more dangerous, Defoe argued; and by far the safest course would be to give Spain to Philip and his posterity, who “would be as much Spaniards in a very short time, as ever Philip II. was or any of his other predecessors.”  This was the main argument which had been used in the latter days of King William against going to war at all, and Defoe had then refuted it scornfully; but circumstances had changed, and he not only adopted it, but also issued an essay “proving that it was always the sense both of King William and of all the Confederates, and even of the Grand Alliance itself, that the Spanish monarchy should never be united in the person of the Emperor.”  Partition the Spanish dominions in Europe between France and Germany, and the West Indies between England and Holland—­such was Defoe’s idea of a proper basis of peace.

But while Defoe expounded in various forms the conditions of a good peace, he devoted his main energy to proving that peace under some conditions was a necessity.  He dilated on the enormous expense of the war, and showed by convincing examples that it was ruining the trade of the country.  Much that he said was perfectly true, but if he had taken M. Mesnager’s bribes and loyally carried out his instructions, he could not more effectually have served the French King’s