The Stream of Ignorance Running High

Abstract

The winter of 1697/8, besides seeing Defoe’s conditional discharge from bankruptcy, also marks a major turning point in his life, his first employment as government propagandist and confidential agent. It had already been possible for him to write during the previous winter of ‘the French King, who now inclines to Peace, and owns it’;¹ and though the war had dragged on for another rather half-hearted campaign, the real business of the summer had been the negotiations which finally led to the signing of the Treaty of Ryswick on 21 September. Louis XIV agreed, not only to give up some of the territories he had occupied during the previous twenty years, but also to recognise William III as King of England, and to give no countenance to any scheme to restore James II. As Defoe pointed out, only a few years before most people would have laughed at the very notion of such favourable terms;² and indeed Louis had made concessions not really justified by any successes in the field. This was partly because, despite acute financial difficulties, the English economy had proved more resilient than the French; and ‘’tis not he who has the longest Sword, so much as he who has the longest Purse, will hold the War out best’.³