Note 7 — THE LIFE OF DE FOE, BY GEORGE CHALMERS, ESQ.

The title of De Foe's pamphlet, or pamphlets, on this subject, does not seem to be known, but he more than once in afterlife proudly refers to his efforts on that important matter. "The next time I differed with my friends, was when king James was wheedling the dissenters to take off the penal laws and test, which I could by no means come into. And as in the first I used to say, I had rather the popish house of Austria should ruin the protestants in Hungary, than that the infidel house of Ottoman should ruin both protestant and papist, by overrunning Germany, so in the other I told the dissenters I had rather the Church of England should pull our clothes off by fines and forfeitures, than that the papists should fall both upon the church and the dissenters, and pull our skins off by fire and fagot." [Appeal to Honour and Justice.] And again: "I never would have had the dissenters to join with king James, to take off the penal laws and test. No; no: I thank God I was of age then to bear my testimony against it, and to affront some who were of a different opinion." [Review, vol. viii. p. 694.]—Ed.