hope it will be needless to renew the assurances to your grace, that I will not omit any thing in my power, which may testify my zeal for the public, and my particular honour and esteem for your grace; and I doubt not, but when the lord you mention comes, I shall satisfy him of the sincerity of my intentions towards your grace.10
Harley's perfidy allowed him to assure Marlborough he would "never do any thing which shall forfeit your good opinion" while pretending to plan to restore Marlborough to the Queen's confidence. Further, when Marlborough appealed to him to silence the libellous attacks by journalists, Harley replied, "I do assure your grace I neither know nor desire to know any of the authors; and as I heartily wish this barbarous war was at an end, I shall be very ready to take my part in suppressing them."11 Details about the financing of Woodstock and mutual friends crop up in the letters. So successful is Harley's deception that when Sir Solomon Medina accuses Marlborough of graft, Marlborough writes Harley:
Upon my arrival here, I had notice that my name was brought before the commissioners of accounts, possibly without any design to do me a prejudice. However, to prevent any ill impression it might make, I have writ a letter to those gentlemen … and when you have taken the pains to read the inclosed copy, pray be so kind as to employ your good offices, so as that it may be known I have the advantage of your friendship. No one knows better than your lordship the great use and expence of intelligence, and no one can better explain it; and 'tis for that reason I take the liberty to add a farther request, that you would be so kind to lay the whole, on some fitting opportunity, before the queen, being very well persuaded her majesty, who has so far approved, and so well rewarded my services would not be willing they should now be reflected on.12
Defoe points out that criticism of the Duke "may prove Dangerous and Fatal" and the joy in the French court at each step in Marlborough's fall reinforces Defoe's and Harley's opinion13 Defoe recounts Marlborough's greatest military victories beginning as far back as his campaign in Brabant (reminding his readers of possible wealth gained through a shipwreck and of the betrayal of Dunkirk as he goes along), includes descriptions of his exemplary behavior including regular prayers for the Camp, and praises Marlborough as a "finish'd Hero." The conclusion to the pamphlet warns the nation again of Marlborough's importance; his battles are bringing the enemy to "reason," procuring "an honorable and lasting peace." References to the detrimental effect of discrediting the general are found intermittently throughout the pamphlet in allusion to Hannibal.
Defoe, then, served Harley's purposes well. He defended Marlborough and shored up his prestige in a time when it was important for the French to think that Marlborough could prosecute the war freely. As a known employee of Harley's, Defoe furthered Marlborough's impression that Harley could be depended upon.14 Finally, he began to prepare the moderate Whigs for peace by presenting the economic considerations and disassociating Marlborough from the Queen's and the ministry's "business of peace."
The possibility that Defoe acted independently in this writing cannot be discounted.15 Defoe had praised Marlborough since the beginning of his career and the extent to which he and Godolphin adopted William's policies added to Defoe's admiration; admiration is clear in this pamphlet. Defoe had worked for Godolphin and Sunderland, and may have used "by an Old Officer in the Army" as a disguise from Harley or even as a means of publishing independently. That Defoe resented attacks on his hero can hardly be doubted – the Review and his pamphlets are a catalog of the general's triumphs, and no where does he attack unequivocably; even in No Queen he puts chief blame on rumors and on Marlborough's party. Harley's failure to make permanent provisions for Defoe may suggest some dissatisfaction, but even if the possibility that the Life was not expressly ordered by Harley is considered, it is noteworthy that nothing in it is offensive to Harley, and, more important, remarkable that it serves Harley's needs and ends at the time so well.
Definitely Defoe's, however, are veiled but telling attacks on Swift and his type. Although the purpose of the Examiner was to "furnish Mankind, with a Weekly Antidote to that Weekly Poison,"16 Defoe parodied this by saying his pamphlet was to "undeceive the People." The "base Pamphleteers" are labeled uninformed and ungrateful; they have no way of making right judgments in the matter of perquisites and soldier's pay; they go out to see a battlefield as they might a well laid-out garden, and, of course, their "Mouths go off smartly with a Whiff of Tobacco" (an obvious ridiculing contrast to the cannon fire of the real fighters).
Furthermore, compared to attacks on Marlborough in libels such as The Duke of M***'s Confessions to a Jacobite Priest, The Land-Leviathan: or, the Modern Hydra, and The Perquisite Monger, Defoe's pamphlet was exemplary in its moderation. Even Swift's attacks are moderate beside the majority of these 1711-12 pamphlets; not even he conjured up memories of regicide and rebellion as did the more numerous and libellous pamphleteers. For example, The Mobb's Address to my Lord M*** (1710) linked Marlborough to Sacheverell and assured the Duke his "most dutiful Mobb, will use our utmost Care and Diligence to raise all riotous and tumultous Assemblys, and with undaunted Vigour … oppose … all who will keep up the Authority of the Crown." Oliver's Pocket Looking Glass (1711) while more erudite was scarcely less inflammatory – shades of Cromwell were called up, a "Colossus" with an "Army compos'd of almost all nations" faced the "body politic."
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