The Secret Agent
By REX WARNER THE correspondence of Defoe, now for the first time brought together in one volume, is interesting and impor- tant for many reasons. The letters cover a period of twenty-seven years (from 1703 to 1730). The great majority of them are addressed to Robert Harley and were written between 1704 and 1714. These form a remarkable record of a very close relationship between a great statesman and some- one who was rather more than a great journalist.
There is, of course, a directness about all Defoe's writing which is most agreeable. There is also plenty of that best kind of common sense which often appears very slightly naïf. Both these qualities can be noticed in the first of the recorded letters, the one written to the Earl of Nottingham when Defoe was in hiding for the very good reason that the government, having made fools of themselves over their reception of The Shortest Way with Dissenters, were determined to make an example of the author. Defoe attempts (vainly, as it turns out) to argue himself out 9f this position. His excuse for going into hiding at all is characteristic : 'My Lord, a Body Unfitt to bear the hard- ships of a Prison, and a Mind Impatient of Confinement, have been the Onely Reasons of withdrawing My Self.' And he goes on to suggest that the matter might be amicably settled if he can be guaranteed some punishment 'a Little More Tollerable to me as a Gentleman, Than Prisons, Pillorys, and such like, which are Worse to me Than Death.' Indeed he goes further and suggests that, in return for complete forgiveness, 'I will Raise her Majtie a Troop of horse . . . and at the head of Them Ile Serve her as Long as I Live.'
Fortunately for posterity Defoe was not committed to a lifelong military service, and the prison and pillory did not prove worse than death, though they proved bad enough, and Defoe was for ever grateful to Harley for securing his release from Newgate. This lasting gratitude is the more creditable, since Harley does not seem to have rewarded his indefatigable agent very generously. But in private life his relations with Defoe were cordial and gratifying to both parties. And in this connection it is worth while recalling Swift's letter to Harley (then Earl of Oxford) of July 3, 1714, in which he writes : 'In your public capacity you have often angered me to the heart, but, as a private man, never once.'
Certainly Defoe, partly from a liking for and gratitude towards his patron, partly because the job was so well fitted to his abilities, threw himself into this Intelligence work with the utmost enthusiasm. Indeed he becomes impatient if he cannot be continually at work. 'I Confess it Afflicts me to See the Day appear and My Self Unfurnisht with the Main Thing, the Very Substance of all the Rest, your Instructions.' He fills in his time by making a few suggestions about how to 'bring the Swede to Reason without concerning the Dane or the Prussian in the Matter' and in devising a lengthy scheme or programme con- cerning the means and ends of government, in the course of which he ranges over all foreign and domestic policy. This long letter is an early one (1704) and is of great interest. It is full of general principles, historical parallels and precise sug- gestions. The advice given is, on the whole, excellent, and the general reflections have a rapidity and a precision about them
The Letters of Daniel Defoe. Edited by G. H. Healey. (0.U.P., 42s.) which prevent them from being boring or platitudinous. For example, on the theme that `Tis therefore Absolutely Necessary for a States man to be Popular' Defoe writes : 'A States Man Once in the Peoples favor has a Thousand Opportunityes to do with Freedome, what in a Contrary Circumstance he would Not Dare to Attempt: for as the People often Condemn hastily, They Approve with More blindness than They Censure, and yet Generally Speaking the Common People have been Allwayes in the Right.'
That this last sentence is not the expression of doctrinaire or sentimental democracy is made clear by many other passages in the correspondence. But this faith 'generally speaking' in the people is one of the most important elements in Defoe's view of things. It is a view held perfectly sincerely and is confirmed rather than contradicted by such sentences as the following (with reference to the situation in Scotland before the Act of Union): 'The Mob is a Machine; the Jacobites have wound them up to a Pitch and Nothing but Time, Management, Temper and success Can Reduce them to the proper Medium.'
Then too the emphasis on 'Time, Management and Temper' —characteristic both of Defoe and of Harley—is by no means the expression of a wait-and-see attitude. Defoe is not only invariably energetic, but sometimes impatient. He throws him- self wholeheartedly into the agitation for the Union of England and Scotland and the letters of this period (the most numerous in the collection) are as interesting biographically as they are important historically. He is constantly busy. 'I omitted writeing the last post perfectly for Want of Subject—being at present Entirely Taken up in Meer Cavil and' Continual Dispute with the Clamourous Clergy.' And he adds that, if he has ever done any good since he came to Scotland, it is now, 'for These Men are Really the Boutefcus of the Nation' (boutefeux : fire- brands).
And in the midst of this continual activity as an agitator and a reporter Defoe has always an eye for a bargain. This was a characteristic of his ever since the time of what the editor of this volume describes as 'an unfortunate venture in breeding civet cats.' Now, at the height of the agitation in Scotland, he is anxious to secure for his benefactor 'a Ton of Rich Claret here which I May do as Cheap as you buy a hhd [hogshead].'
Nor were Defoe's schemes by any means confined to the benefit of himself and his friends. Some years later he appears with a long memorandum 'Of Improvements in Scotland' which included an account of 'The State of the Case of Docks etc. at Leith' and a plea for 'The Advantages of the Firth for Laying up the Ships.' In all this correspondence there is no mention of Defoe's great literary works and hardly any mention of his more ephemeral journalism. But those who know him best as a novelist or a journalist will not be disappointed by his appear- ance as a more or less secret agent. Infinite industry, the greatest attention to detail, a rapid mind, adventurousness in rather un- likely directions (as in the affair of the civet cats), a sound and solid attachment to a few human principles—these are charac- teristics of the man whatever his employment may be.
It is sad that the series of letters ends as it has begun with Defoe again in hiding, this time from a creditor. The last letter is dated August, 1730:about six months before his death. It is a controversial letter and needs the help of biographers for its elucidation. The editor of the volume under review has wisely confined himself to notes concerning facts and dates and has not attempted, what there was not space to attempt, an analysis of Defoe's complicated (though in some respects simple) character. Yet the long series of letters to Harley speaks very well for itself, and those who have read the correspondence will not easily accept the view that Defoe was a totally unscrupulous political hack, however brilliant. In his times, as in our own, to change parties did not necessarily mean to change one's convictions. Defoe did not suffer the lacerations of the heart which another friend of Harley, Swift, suffered; but he was as consistent as Swift in the championing of liberty.
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