Note 25 — THE LIFE OF DE FOE, BY GEORGE CHALMERS, ESQ.
Reading edition
De Foe frequently vindicates the memory of William III., but more especially in his Reviews. In 1702, he published The Mock Mourners, a satire by way of elegy on king William. By the author of the True-born Englishman. De Foe's summary of William III.'s character in the reviews is as follows:—
"It may, perhaps, be thought by some people a digression too remote from my present pursuit, when I launch out into the crimes of a party; but, if I am carried into extremes when the memory of king William is touched, I am altogether careless of making an excuse; and I acknowledge myself less master of my temper in that case, than in anything I can be touched in besides. The memory of that glorious monarch is so dear, and so valuable in the hearts of all true protestants, that have a sense both of what they escaped and what they enjoy by his hand, that it is difficult to retain any charity for their principles that can forget the obligation. His name is a word of congratulation; and 'The immortal memory of king William,' will be a health, as long as drinking healths is suffered in this part of the world.
"Let the ungrateful wretch that forgets what God wrought by his hand, look back upon popery coming in like a flood; property trampled underfoot; all sorts of cruelties and butcheries in practice in Scotland, and approaching in England! Let him review the insolence of the soldiery, the inveteracy of the court party, the tyranny, perjury, and avarice of governors; and at the foot of the account let him write, Delivered by king William. Then let him look back on the prince: How great, how splendid, how happy, how rich, how easy, and how justly valued by friends and enemies! He lived before in the field glorious, feared by enemies of his country, loved by the soldiery, having a vast inheritance of his own, governor of a rich state, blessed with the best of consorts, and as far as this life could give, completely happy. Compare this with the gaudy crown we gave him. Had a visible scheme been laid with it, of all the uneasinesses, dangers, crosses, disappointments, and dark prospects which that prince found with it, no wise man would have taken it off the dunghill, or come out of gaol to be master of it.
"Unhappy Englishmen! Is this the man you reproach? Had he any failing but that he bare too much with the most barbarous usage in the world? Had he not the most merit and the worst treatment that ever king in England met with?
"Who can hear men tell us, they helped to make him king, and were not considered for it? You helped to make him king! Pray what merit do you plead, and from whom was the debt? You helped to make him king? That is, you helped to save your country, and ruin him; you helped to recover your own liberties and those of your posterity, as you ought to have been blasted from heaven if you had not, and now you claim rewards from him! I will tell you how he rewarded you fully: he rewarded you by sacrificing his peace, his comfort, his fortune, and his country, to support you. He died a thousand times in the chagrin, vexation, and perplexity he had from the unkindness and treachery of his friends, and the numberless hazards of the field against the enemy. And yet all would not satisfy a craving generation, an insatiable party, who thought all the taxes raised for the war, given, not to the nation, but to the king, and endeavoured to blot the best character in the world with the crimes of those whom they themselves recommended him to trust." [Review, 1707, vol. iv. p. 77.]