Note 59 — THE LIFE OF DE FOE, BY GEORGE CHALMERS, ESQ.

Mr. Chalmers here seems to be mistaken. De Foe wrote neither of these works. The first Mr. Wilson tells us was written by Oldmixon. De Foe, indeed, in order to expose the folly of the high tory party, who had procured several addresses to the queen, and which were published by them as an indication, "that the sense of the nation is express for the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance, and for her majesty's hereditary title to the throne of her ancestors," published a counter manifesto, A New Test of the Sense of the Nation: being a modest Comparison between the Addresses to the late King James and those to her present Majesty. In order to show how far the sense of the nation may be judged of by either of them. 1710. His object is of course to expose the folly of supposing that the addresses represented the real feeling of the country. In a strain of great irony, he says; "The practice of addressing has cheated many already; a jest that was put upon Richard Cromwell, and yet they deprived him three weeks afterwards. It was a second time put upon king James II. and they all flew in his face a year after. And I could give some instances of the little value that has been put upon it since, even such as one would think the very people themselves expect,—that for time to come addressing should pass for nothing with their princes."—Ed.