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The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) By: Daniel Defoe (1661?-1731) |
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by DANIEL DE FOE London. 18O8 [Illustration: I had one labour to make me a Canoe,
which at last I finished.]
THE LIFE OF DE FOE
Daniel De Foe was descended from a respectable family in the county of
Northampton, and born in London, about the year 1663. His father, James
Foe, was a butcher, in the parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, and a
protestant dissenter. Why the subject of this memoir prefixed the De
to his family name cannot now be ascertained, nor did he at any period
of his life think it necessary to give his reasons to the public. The
political scribblers of the day, however, thought proper to remedy this
lack of information, and accused him of possessing so little of the
amor patriae , as to make the addition in order that he might not be
taken for an Englishman; though this idea could have had no other
foundation than the circumstance of his having, in consequence of his
zeal for King William, attacked the prejudices of his countrymen in his
"True born Englishman." After receiving a good education at an academy at Newington, young De
Foe, before he had attained his twenty first year, commenced his career
as an author, by writing a pamphlet against a very prevailing sentiment
in favour of the Turks who were at that time laying siege to Vienna.
This production, being very inferior to those of his maturer years, was
very little read, and the indignant author, despairing of success with
his pen, had recourse to the sword; or, as he termed it, when boasting
of the exploit in his latter years, "displayed his attachment to
liberty, and protestantism," by joining the ill advised insurrection
under the Duke of Monmouth, in the west. On the failure of that
unfortunate enterprise, he returned again to the metropolis; and it is
not improbable, but that the circumstance of his being a native of
London, and his person not much known in that part of the kingdom where
the rebellion took place, might facilitate his escape, and be the means
of preventing his being brought to trial for his share in the
transaction. With the professions of a writer and a soldier, Mr. De Foe,
in the year 1685, joined that of a trader; he was first engaged as a
hosier, in Cornhill, and afterwards as a maker of bricks and pantiles,
near Tilbury Fort, in Essex; but in consequence of spending those hours
in the hilarity of the tavern which he ought to have employed in the
calculations of the counting house, his commercial schemes proved
unsuccessful; and in 1694 he was obliged to abscond from his creditors,
not failing to attribute those misfortunes to the war and the severity
of the times, which were doubtless owing to his own misconduct. It is
much to his credit however, that after having been freed from his debts
by composition, and being in prosperous circumstances from King
William's favour, he voluntarily paid most of his creditors both the
principal and interest of their claims. This is such an example of
honesty as it would be unjust to De Foe and to the world to conceal. The
amount of the sums thus paid must have been very considerable, as he
afterwards feelingly mentions to Lord Haversham, who had reproached him
with covetousness; "With a numerous family, and no helps but my own
industry, I have forced my way through a sea of misfortunes, and reduced
my debts, exclusive of composition, from seventeen thousand to less than
five thousand pounds." At the beginning of the year 1700, Mr. De Foe published a satire in
verse, which excited very considerable attention, called the "True born
Englishman." Its purpose was to furnish a reply to those who were
continually abusing King William and some of his friends as
foreigners , by shewing that the present race of Englishmen was a mixed
and heterogeneous brood, scarcely any of which could lay claim to native
purity of blood. The satire was in many parts very severe; and though
it gave high offence, it claimed a considerable share of the public
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