Editing Daniel Defoe (section)

=== Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707 ===
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[[File:Defoe 1709 The History Of The Union Of Great Britain.JPG|thumb|Title page from Daniel Defoe's: ''The History of the Union of Great Britain'' dated 1709 and printed in Edinburgh by the Heirs of Anderson]]
In despair during his imprisonment for the seditious libel case, Defoe wrote to [[William Paterson (banker)|William Paterson]], the London Scot and founder of the [[Bank of England]] and part instigator of the [[Darien scheme]], who was in the confidence of [[Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer]], leading minister and spymaster in the [[Governance of England|English government]]. Harley accepted Defoe's services and released him in 1703. He immediately published ''The Review'', which appeared weekly, then three times a week, written mostly by himself. This was the main mouthpiece of the English Government promoting the [[Acts of Union 1707|Act of Union 1707]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://theses.ncl.ac.uk/dspace/bitstream/10443/165/1/downie76.pdf |title=Robert Harley and the Press |last=Downie |first=J. A. |website=University of Newcastle eTheses |publisher=University of Newcastle |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190125183319/https://theses.ncl.ac.uk/dspace/bitstream/10443/165/1/downie76.pdf |archive-date=25 January 2019 |access-date=24 January 2019}}</ref>

Defoe began his campaign in ''The Review'' and other pamphlets aimed at English opinion, claiming that it would end the threat from the north, gaining for the Treasury an "inexhaustible treasury of men", a valuable new market increasing the power of England. By September 1706, Harley ordered Defoe to [[Edinburgh]] as a secret agent, and to secure acquiescence by using "underhand methods to predispose Scots' opinion in favour of"<ref name="Somerset">{{cite book |last=Somerset |first=Anne |author-link=Lady Anne Somerset |date=2012 |title=Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion |location=London |publisher=Willaim Collins |page=313 |isbn=978-0-00-720376-5}}</ref> the [[Treaty of Union]]. He was conscious of the risk to himself. Thanks to books such as ''The Letters of Daniel Defoe'' (edited by G. H. Healey, Oxford 1955), far more is known about his activities than is usual with such agents.

His first reports included vivid descriptions of violent demonstrations against the Union. "A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind", he reported. Defoe reportedly "became fearful of being [[lynched]] after a threatening crowd surged up the High Street shouting 'No Union! No English dogs!'"<ref name="Somerset"/> Years later [[Sir John Clerk, 2nd Baronet|John Clerk of Penicuik]], a leading Unionist, wrote in his memoirs that it was not known at the time that Defoe had been sent by Godolphin: {{blockquote|to give a faithful account to him from time to time how everything past here. He was therefor<!--sic--> a spy among us, but not known to be such, otherways the [[wikt:mob|Mob]] of [[Edinburgh|Edin.]]<!--sic--> had pull him to pieces.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Clerk |first=John |url=https://archive.org/details/memoirslifesirj01clergoog |title=Memoirs of the life of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, baronet, baron of the Exchequer, extracted by himself from his own journals, 1676–1755 |date=1892 |publisher=Scottish Historical Society |editor-last=Gray |editor-first=John Miller |location=Edinburgh |pages=63–64}} In a side-note at this point Clerk recommends Defoe's ''History of the Union of Great Britain'' : "This History of the Union deserves to be read. It was published in folio. There is not one fact in it which I can challenge"</ref>|sign=|source=}}

Defoe was a [[Presbyterian]] who had suffered in England for his convictions, and as such he was accepted as an adviser to the [[General Assembly of the Church of Scotland]] and committees of the [[Parliament of Scotland]]. He told Harley that he was "privy to all their folly" but "Perfectly unsuspected as with corresponding with anybody in England". He was then able to influence the proposals that were put to Parliament and reported,

{{blockquote|Having had the honour to be always sent for the committee to whom these amendments were referrèd,<br/>I have had the good fortune to break their measures in two particulars via the bounty on Corn and<br/>proportion of the Excise.}}

For Scotland, he used different arguments, even the opposite of those which he used in England, usually ignoring the English doctrine of the [[Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom|Sovereignty of Parliament]], for example, telling the Scots that they could have complete confidence in the guarantees in the Treaty. Some of his pamphlets were purported to be written by Scots, misleading even reputable historians into quoting them as evidence of Scottish opinion of the time. The same is true of a massive history of the Union which Defoe published in 1709 and which some historians still treat as a valuable contemporary source for their own works. Defoe took pains to give his history an air of objectivity by giving some space to arguments against the Union, but always kept the last word for himself.

He disposed of the main Union opponent, [[Andrew Fletcher (patriot)|Andrew Fletcher]] of [[East Saltoun and West Saltoun|Saltoun]], by ignoring him. Nor does he account for the deviousness of the [[James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Hamilton|Duke of Hamilton]], the official leader of the various factions opposed to the Union, who seemingly betrayed his former colleagues when he switched to the Unionist/Government side in the decisive final stages of the debate.

==== Aftermath ====
In 1709, Defoe authored a lengthy book entitled ''The History of the Union of Great Britain'', an Edinburgh publication printed by the Heirs of Anderson.<ref>[https://truescans.com/BeginnersFolder/Defoe.htm ''The History Of The Union Of Great Britain'', 1709; Edinburgh, Heirs of Anderson] at TrueScans.</ref> Defoe is cited twice in the book as its author,<ref>[http://truescans.com/BeginnersFolder/Images/Defoe_1709/DSCN9162.JPG First Defoe book author reference – cited as DANIEL DEFOE] at truescans.com.</ref><ref>[http://truescans.com/BeginnersFolder/Images/Defoe_1709/DSCN9166.JPG Second Defoe book author reference – cited as D. DE FOE] at truescans.com.</ref> and gives details of the events leading up to the ''[[Acts of Union 1707]]'', dating as far back as 6 December 1604, when King [[James VI and I|James I]] was presented with a proposal for unification.<ref>[http://truescans.com/BeginnersFolder/Images/Defoe_1709/DSCN9167A.JPG Book reference to 6th December of 1604] at truescans.com.</ref> This so-called "first draft" for unification took place just a little over 100 years before the signing of the 1707 accord.

Defoe made no attempt to explain why the same Parliament of Scotland which was so vehemently in favour of remaining independent from 1703 to 1705 became so supine in 1706. He received very little reward from his paymasters and no recognition for his services by the government. He made use of his Scottish experience to write his ''Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain'', published in 1726, where he admitted that the increase of trade and population in Scotland which he had predicted as a consequence of the Union was "not the case, but rather the contrary".

[[File:Glasgow Bridge c.1758.JPG|thumb|upright=1.4|Glasgow Bridge as Defoe might have seen it in the 18th century]]
Defoe's description of [[Glasgow]] (Glaschu) as a "Dear Green Place" has often been misquoted as a [[Scottish Gaelic|Gaelic]] translation for the town's name. The Gaelic ''Glas'' could mean grey or green, while ''chu'' means dog or hollow. ''Glaschu'' probably means "Green Hollow". The "Dear Green Place", like much of Scotland, was a hotbed of unrest against the Union. The local [[St George's Tron Church|Tron]] [[Minister (Christianity)|minister]] urged his congregation "to up and anent for the City of God".

The "Dear Green Place" and "City of God" required government troops to put down the rioters tearing up copies of the Treaty at almost every [[mercat cross]] in Scotland. When Defoe visited in the mid-1720s, he claimed that the hostility towards his party was "because they were English and because of the Union, which they were almost universally exclaimed against".<ref>{{cite book|title=Essential Scots and the Idea of Unionism in Anglo-Scottish Literature, 1603–1832|first=Rivka|last=Swenson|page=58|date=2015|edition=ebook|publisher=Bucknell University Press}}</ref>