'Tis a great happiness to a Nation to have a generous Race of Warlike People, who, at all times, are ready to venture their Lives in the defence of it. Cowardice is the highest Scandal to a Country, and exposes it to be a Prey to every Invader, as well as a Scorn to their Neighbours. In all Histories of the World, they who dare die for the sake of their Country, have been esteem'd as a sort of Martyrs: And the People who are protected at Home in their Estates, Ease, Safety, and Liberties, ought not to grudge them of any of their Perquisites; but to bless God for such a gallant number of Martial Brethren, who drive the War at a great distance, so that we see none, we do but hear of it; for 'tis a sad thing to behold the Ravages, the Ruine, the Spoils, the Devastations of those Countries which happen to be the Seats of War.
When the Officers, coming from Flanders , after the Campaign, appear in the newest Fashions, which they bring over with them, with a good Ayre and genteel Mien, which is almost common to them, the People, who never saw the Hardships which they undergo, think them only design'd for Pleasure and Ease, and their Profession to be desir'd above any thing in the World besides. They often hear of Fights and Sieges, and of a great many Men kill'd in a few Hours; but because they see
and courage, to mention a few, are consistent throughout his life and found in this pamphlet. For example, he makes the same distinctions in types of courage in Journal of the Plague Year , the Review , Robinson Crusoe , Atalantis Major , and Memoirs of Captain Carleton that he does in The Life ("True courage cannot proceed from what Sir Walter Raleigh finely calls the art or philosophy of quarrel. No! It must be the issue of principle").
Moreover, the pamphlet itself bears certain marks indicative of Defoe's hand. It was published by John Baker, "at the Black-Boy in Pater-noster-Row," Defoe's usual publisher for that year. Had it been published by, say, Tonson, the immediate conclusion would be that it was not Defoe's. Baker appeared to take greater care with Defoe's pamphlets than he did with some others; A Defence of Dr. Sacheverell , for example, has fifty lines of small type to the page. Six other tracts by Defoe have titles beginning with "Short" or "Shortest." The use of the eye witness narrator and the soldier narrator are recurring devices which Defoe used to protect himself or his sources and to add weight to what he was purporting to be factual.
Finally Marlborough was one of Defoe's heroes until at least late 1711. He praises him highly in Seldom Comes a Better , Atalantis Major , and The Quaker's Sermon . It is with reluctance that Defoe is persuaded that Marlborough must be displaced, and even in the poem on the occasion of Marlborough's funeral, his disapproval seems to be more for the ostentatiousness and inappropriateness of the funeral than for the man himself. All in all, there is scarcely a line in The Life which does not bear Defoe's fingerprints.