The Closet of a King

Abstract

The mists which obscure so many of Defoe’s activities are never more frustrating than in the later months of the year 1700; for this was the crucial period of his life when he entered the service of King William III. In An Appeal to Honour and Justice, written in 1715 to justify his past political conduct, he has left an obviously elliptical account of these events:

During this time, there came out a vile abhor’d Pamphlet, in very ill Verse, written by one Mr. Tutchin, and call’d THE FOREIGNERS: In which the Author, who he was I then knew not, fell personally upon the King himself, and then upon the Dutch Nation: and after having reproach’d his Majesty with Crimes, that his worst Enemy could not think of without Horror, he summs up all in the odious Name of FOREIGNER.

This fill’d me with a kind of Rage against the Book, and gave birth to a Trifle which I could not hope should have met with so general Acceptation as it did, I mean The True-Born Englishman. How this poem was the Occasion of my being known to his Majesty; how I was afterwards receiv’d by him; how Employ’d; and how, above my Capacity of deserving, Rewarded, is no Part of the present Case.¹