A CHARACTERISTIC ANECDOTE, 11

and business management. Such details were little in accordance with, his
tastes, and we do not wonder that, with his strong Protestant principles and
enlarged sympathies, he early plunged into the fierce joys of political con-
test. He was no bigot, however—no fanatical exponent of his own views;
and though a sound Protestant, he was little inclined to join in the unreason-
ing persecution of Roman Catholics which characterized the closing years
of Charles the Second’s reign. At a later time he wrote: “I never blame
men who, professing principles destructive of the Constitution they live
under, and believing it their just right to supplant it, act in conformity to
the principles they profess. I believe, if I were a Papist, I should do the
same. Believing the merit of it would carry me to heaven, I doubt not I
should go as far as another. But when we ran up that plot to general
massacres, fleets of pilgrims, bits and bridles, knives, handcuffs, and a thou-
sand such things, I confess, though a boy, I could not then, nor can now,
come up to them. And my reasons were, as they still are, because I see no
cause to believe the Papists to be fools, whatever else we had occasion to
think them. A general massacre, truly! when the Papists are not five to a
hundred, in some countries not one, and within the city hardly one toa
thousand!”

This liberal and tolerant spirit De Foe preserved throughout his career,
and few of his contemporaries, if any, more thoroughly comprehended the
true principles of civil and religious freedom. For bigotry, whether Protest-
ant or Roman Catholic, he had a great contempt. On one occasion he
entered a crowd of listeners who, with mouths and ears open, were devour-
ing the latest scandal against “the Papishes.” An itinerant spouter was
retailing an invention in reference to the newly-erected Monument, “ Last
night,” said he, unblushingly, “six Frenchmen came up and stole it away ;
and but for the watch, who stopped them as they went over the bridge, and
made them carry it back again, they might, for aught we know, have carried
it over into France. These Papishes will never have done.” Some of the
bystanders looked incredulous at this very bold assertion, and Mr. Daniel
Foe stepped forward, with grave satirical air, to clench the monstrous
absurdity. He repeated the story, but added a touch of characteristic
realism ; for, said he, if you do but hasten to the spot, you will see the work-
men employed in making all fast again!*

Seven years later, De Foe, or Foe, as he then called himself, started in
business on his own account. He became a liveryman of London, and
established himself as hose-factor in Freeman’s Court, Cornhill, His interest
in politics, however, was of so deep and absorbing a kind that his commer-
cial speculations must greatly have suffered by it. He could not serve. two
masters—he was too earnest a patriot to attain success as a man of business.
Now-a-days, it is quite possible for any one of us to combine both capacities
The political questions which demand attention may well be considered in

* Forster, “ Historical and Biographical Essays,” ii, 8