Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/287

date is fixed by his statement in the preface to the ‘Protestant Monastery,’ published 1727, that he was then in his sixty-seventh year. His grandfather, James Foe, kept a pack of hounds (Review, vol. vii. preface) and farmed his own estate at Elton, Northamptonshire. His father, James Foe, was a younger son, who became a butcher in St. Giles's, retired upon a competency, was living in 1705, and is called my ‘late father’ by his son on 23 Sept. 1708 (ib. ii. 150, iv. 306). Foe changed his name to De Foe or Defoe about 1703, for unascertained reasons (see Wilson's De Foe, i. 231). The parish register contains no entry of his baptism. His parents were non-conformists, and joined the congregation in Bishopsgate Street formed by Samuel Annesley [q. v.], the ejected minister of Cripplegate. Defoe's respect for his pastor is shown by an ‘elegy’ upon Annesley's death in 1697. It is supposed, though on very slight evidence, that he married Annesley's daughter (Wilson, i. 345). He was thus brought up as a dissenter, and at the age of fourteen sent to the academy at Newington Green kept by Charles Morton, another ejected divine. Defoe speaks well of the school (Present State of Parties, 316–20). The lessons were all given in English, and many of the pupils, according to Defoe, distinguished themselves by their mastery of the language. Here he acquired the foundation of the knowledge of which he afterwards boasts in answer to Swift, who had called him and Tutchin (Examiner, No. 16) ‘two stupid illiterate scribblers.’ He ‘understood’ Latin, Spanish, and Italian, ‘could read’ Greek, and could speak French ‘fluently.’ He knew something of mathematics, had a wide acquaintance with geography, the modern history, and especially of the commercial condition of all countries (Applebee's Journal, 1725; in Lee's Defoe, iii. 435; and Review, vii. 455). He had also gone through the theological and philosophical courses necessary to qualify him for the ministry. He gave up the career for which he had been intended, thinking that the position of a dissenting minister was precarious and often degrading (Present State of Parties, 319). He went into business about 1685, and on 26 Jan. 1687–8 became a liveryman of the city of London. He denied (Review, ii. 149, 150) that he had been a ‘hosier,’ and appears to have been a ‘hose factor,’ or middleman between the manufacturer and the retailer. Defoe imbibed the political principles of his teachers and friends. During the ‘popish plot’ he joined in meetings to protect the witnesses from intimidation (ib. vii. 297). He was out with Monmouth in 1685 (Appeal to Honour and Justice) when some of his fellow-students at Newington lost their lives. Defoe's precise share in the rebellion does not appear. In 1701 he wrote a curious pamphlet on the succession, proposing to investigate the claim of Monmouth and his descendants. Defoe speaks of an early writing, which Mr. Lee identified with a ‘Letter … on his Majesty's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience,’ 1687. This seems really to belong to Bishop Burnet (Notes and Queries, 4th ser. iv. 253, 307). Earlier writings, ‘Speculum Crapegownorum,’ pts. i. and ii. 1682, attacking the clergy, and a tract attacking the Turks during the siege of Vienna (1683), are regarded as spurious by Mr. Lee (i. 15), though attributed to Defoe by Wilson (i. 85–93). In 1688 he joined William's army at Henley during the advance to London (Tour through Great Britain, vol. ii. let. i. pp. 64–70). He appeared as a trooper in a volunteer regiment of horse which escorted William and Mary to a great banquet in the city, 29 Oct. 1689 (Oldmixon, iii. 36). His political or literary distractions or his speculative tendencies were probably the cause of a bankruptcy, which took place about 1692 (Review, iii. 399). He had been engaged in foreign trade. He had visited France, had been at Aix-la-Chapelle, and had resided for a time in Spain (Tour, vol. i. let. ii. pp. 16, 121, iii. let. i. p. 54; Review, vii. 527). His debts were considerable, and he says that he had in 1705 reduced them, ‘exclusive of composition, from 17,000l. to less than 5,000l.’ (Reply to Haversham's Vindication; see also letter to Fransham, Notes and Queries, 5th ser. iii. 283). Tutchin, though an opponent, also bears testimony to his having honourably discharged in full debts for which composition had been accepted (Dialogue between a Dissenter and the Observator, 1703). Defoe characteristically turned his experience to account by soon afterwards writing an ‘Essay upon Projects,’ which did not appear, however, till 1698 (Lee, i. 28, 38), containing suggestions for a national bank, for a system of assurance, for friendly societies, for ‘pension offices’ or savings banks, for idiot asylums, for a reform of the bankruptcy laws, and for various academies. The suggestions, though of course already in the air, place him among the most intelligent observers of the social conditions of the day. About 1694 he was invited to take charge of a commercial agency in Spain, but refused the offer in order to take part ‘with some eminent persons’ in suggesting ways and means to government, then struggling to meet the requirements of the war. In 1695 he was appointed ‘accountant to the commissioners of the glass duty,’ an office which he held until the suppression of the com-