Transcriber's Note: This e-book, a pamphlet by Daniel Defoe, wasoriginally published in 1713, and was prepared from The Novels andMiscellaneous Works of Daniel De Foe, vol. 6 (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855).Archaic spellings have been retained as they appear in the original,and obvious printer errors have been corrected without note.
Si Populus vult Decipi, Decipiatur.
LONDON:
Printed for J. Baker, at the Black-Boy in
Pater-Noster-Row, 1713. [Price 6d.]
What strife is here among you all? And what a noise about who shall orshall not be king, the Lord knows when? Is it not a strange thing wecannot be quiet with the queen we have, but we must all fall intoconfusion and combustions about who shall come after? Why, pray folks,how old is the queen, and when is she to die? that here is this pothermade about it. I have heard wise people say the queen is not fiftyyears old, that she has no distemper but the gout, that that is along-life disease, which generally holds people out twenty, or thirty,or forty years; and let it go how it will, the queen may well enoughlinger out twenty or thirty years, and not be a huge old wife neither.Now, what say the people, must we think of living twenty or thirtyyears in this wrangling condition we are now in? This would be atorment worse than some of the Egyptian plagues, and would beintolerable to bear, though for fewer years than that. The animositiesof this nation, should they go on, as it seems they go on now, wouldby time become to such a height, that all charity, society, and mutualagreement among us, will be destroyed. Christians shall we be called!No; nothing of the people called Christians will be to be found amongus. Nothing of Christianity, or the substance of Christianity, viz.,charity, will be found among us! The name Christian may be assumed,but it will be all hypocrisy and delusion; the being of Christianitymust be lost in the fog, and smoke, and stink, and noise, and rage,and cruelty, of our quarrel about a king. Is this rational? Is itagreeable to the true interest of the nation? What must become oftrade, of religion, of society, of relation, of families, of people?Why, hark ye, you folk that call yourselves rational, and talk ofhaving souls, is this a token of your having such things about you, orof thinking rationally; if you have, pray what is it likely willbecome of you all? Why, the strife is gotten into your kitchens, yourparlours, your shops, your counting-houses, nay, into your very beds.You gentlefolks, if you please to listen to your cookmaids and footmenin your kitchens, you shall hear them scolding, and swearing, andscratching, and fighting among themselves; and when you think thenoise is about the beef and the pudding, the dishwater, or thekitchen-stuff, alas, you are mistaken; the feud is about the moremighty affairs of the government, and who is for the protestantsuccession, and who for the pretender. Here the poor de