Note 64 — THE LIFE OF DE FOE, BY GEORGE CHALMERS, ESQ.

He also vindicated the memory of William III., who had been fiercely attacked for the Partition Treaty, by a pamphlet rather long and quaint—The Felonious Treaty: or, an Inquiry into the Reasons which moved his late Majesty King William, of Glorious Memory, to enter into a Treaty at ten several times, with the King of France, for the Partition of the Spanish Monarchy. With an Essay, proving that it was always the sense both of King William and of all the Confederates, and even of the Grand Alliance itself, that the Spanish Monarchy should never be united in the Person of the Emperor. 1711. In the year 1712, he vigorously attacked the persecuting bill introduced by lord Nottingham, by which dissenters were to be excluded from civil employments, and persons in office were forbidden to attend dissenting places of worship, under severe penalties. De Foe not only kept up a galling fire in his Reviews, but published a pamphlet on the subject, entituled, An Essay on the History of Parties and Persecution in Britain: beginning with a brief Account of the Test Act, and an Historical Inquiry into the Reasons, the Original, and the Consequences of the Occasional Conformity of the Dissenters: with some Remarks on the recent attempts already made and now making for an Occasional Bill: inquiring how far the same may be esteemed a Preservative of the Church, or an Injury to the Dissenters. He seems to have renewed the attack not only against that measure, but also against a similar bill introduced to authorise the use of the liturgy in Scotland, in a pamphlet which Mr. Wilson says bears undoubted evidence of being De Foe's, although never inserted in any list of his writings, entituled, The Present State of Parties in Great Britain: particularly an Inquiry into the State of the Dissenters in England, and the Presbyterians in Scotland: their religious and politic Interest considered, as it respects their Circumstances before and since the late Acts against Occasional Conformity in England, and for Toleration of Common Prayer in Scotland. In this work he goes into a lengthened history of the dissenters, and strongly recommends union amongst all bodies of them. He also in this year vigorously opposed the tax upon newspapers, which was enforced in 1712. The eighth volume of the Review closed in July, 1712. Trade and war are the main subjects discussed in it.—Ed.