At the end of the second volume of Colonel Jacque will be found two of Defoe's earlier political satires: -The True-Born Englishman and The Shortest Way with the Dissenters . The former, the most celebrated piece of verse which Defoe wrote, was published in January, 1701. The circumstances which led to its publication are set forth by the author himself in his autobiographical sketch of 1715, An Appeal to Honour and Justice .
On the first of August, 1700, according to his statement, there appeared "a vile abhorred pamphlet, in very ill verse, written by one Mr. Tutchin, and called The Foreigners ; in which the author.. fell personally upon the King himself, and then upon the Dutch Nation. And after having reproached his Majesty with crimes that his worst enemy could not think of without horror, he sums up all in the odious name of Foreigner . This filled me with a kind of rage against the book, and gave birth to a trifle which I never could hope should have met with so general an acceptance as it did; I mean The True-Born Englishman ."
The reason for Tutchin's pamphlet was that William III., never loved by the English,
became less and less popular after the death of Queen Mary. A Dutchman, he was supposed to have the interests of Holland more at heart than those of England. This supposition was strengthened by the fact that he took no Englishmen into his confidence as he did his old and trusted Dutch friends. These, naturally, shared his unpopularity, especially the Duke of Schomberg and the King's favourite minister, William Bentinck, created Earl of Portland, both of whom are mentioned by Defoe in his True-Born Englishman .
Defoe, in this reply to Tutchin's pamphlet, sought to prove that the king and his foreign friends had as good right to the esteem of the English as any patriots in the history of the country. In the first part of the "poem," as Defoe called his satire, he showed that William, with his Dutch blood, was as much entitled to the name of Englishman as any of his subjects, who came of mixed British, Pictish, Roman, Saxon, Danish, and Norman blood. In short, Defoe made the English out a hybrid race, and with excellent good sense showed that their national vigour was due largely to their being so. Much of what he said might well be said to-day of the people of the United States, as for instance, the following from Defoe's explanatory preface: -
"The multitudes of foreign nations who have taken sanctuary here, have been the greatest additions to the wealth and strength of the nation; the essential whereof is the number of its inhabitants. Nor would this nation ever have arrived to the degree of wealth and glory it now boasts of, if the addition of foreign nations.. had not been helpful to it. This is so plain, that he who is ignorant of it is too dull to be talked with."
The other side to Defoe's picture (and there was another side then as now) is shown in verses which, with a few changes, would likewise be applicable to the United States to-day. Defoe is trying to prove that even with lapse of years the English race remains hybrid.
"And lest by length of time it be pretended The climate may this modern breed have mended, Wise Providence, to keep us where we are, Mixes us daily with exceeding care. We have been Europe's sink, the jakes where she Voids all her offal outcast progeny. From our fifth Henry's time, the strolling bands Of banish'd fugitives from neighb'ring lands Have here a certain sanctuary found: Th' eternal refuge of the vagabond, Where, in but half a common age of time, Borr'wing new blood and manners from the clime, Proudly they learn all mankind to contemn, And all their race are true-born Englishmen."
In the second part of the satire, Defoe tries to describe the nature of the English, their pride, and their ingratitude to their benefactors. Among the stanzas in which he hits off the faults of his countrymen, the following, more true than grammatical, is among the most forcible: -
"Surly to strangers, froward to their friend; Submit to love with a reluctant mind; Resolved to be ungrateful and unkind. If by necessity reduced to ask, The giver has the difficultest task; For what's bestow'd they awkwardly receive, And always take less freely than they give. The obligation is their highest grief; And never love, where they accept relief. So sullen in their sorrows, that 'tis known, They'll rather die than their afflictions own: And if relieved, it is too often true, That they'll abuse their benefactors too; For in distress their haughty stomach's such, They hate to see themselves obliged too much, Seldom contented, often in the wrong; Hard to be pleased at all, and never long."
Defoe's satire was a success. Written, as it is, in rough verse, at times little better than doggerel, it is yet always vigorous and interesting. To-day, after a lapse of two hundred years, no verse from Defoe's pen is so readable. That it was effective in accomplishing the purpose for which it was composed, is proved by the fact that the people, taking the satire good-naturedly, experienced a revulsion of feeling towards the king and his Dutch friends. It was natural that the piece should bring Defoe the increased regard of the king, whose favour he had already to some extent enjoyed. "This poem was the occasion of my being known to His Majesty," Defoe wrote in his Appeal to Honour and Justice ; and "I was afterwards received by him."