Daniel Defoe and the affairs of France

Abstract

Daniel Defoe was hired to write The Review by Robert Harley who needed a propagandist to convince Tory and country MPs to support England’s involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession, an involvement which both Harley and Defoe had previously opposed. In A Weekly Review of the Affairs of France, Defoe, writing anonymously, poses as arbiter of the partisan quarrels of the Whig and Tory press. He sets out to analyse the reasons for French greatness and the corresponding weakness of the confederate allies. Defoe’s initial outline plan is constantly modified in response to events in Europe and the reactions of his readers, some of whom accuse him of excessive admiration for France and even of being a Jacobite. Defoe refutes these accusations and claims to be trying to open his compatriots’ eyes to the dangers they face and the internal divisions which weaken the country. By giving priority to national unity, The Review sacrifices even Defoe’s cherished defence of the dissenters. It thereby fulfils Harley’s remit whilst also signalling a turning point in Defoe’s own thinking. Marlborough’s victory at Blenheim in August 1704 made both praise of French power and castigation of allied weaknesses redundant, but the Defoe who emerges from these early numbers of the Review is not quite the same as the one who commenced it six months earlier.