Daniel Defoe and the Northern War

Abstract

The long-term and tortuous short-term alterations in British policy were reflected with peculiar clarity, during these years, in the comments of the most brilliant English journalist of the day, Daniel Defoe, writer of the tri-weekly Review of the Affairs of France (later, Review of the State of the English Nation, and, after the union between England and Scotland in 1707, … of the British Nation). Little attention has been paid to the light which Defoe’s journal throws on British policy regarding the Northern War. Yet it has long been known that, from the beginning (19 February 1704) the Review was on all important questions the mouthpiece of Harley, Secretary of State for the Northern Department. Defoe had offered his services to Harley before being sent to prison in May 1703. His release in November that year followed intervention on his behalf by Harley. The subsequent correspondence between them leaves no doubt that Defoe was paid from Government funds on the condition of supporting Government policy.¹