All his life after Defoe loved
King William and was his staunch friend, using all the power of
his clever pen to make the unloved Dutch King better understood
of his people. But when King William died and Queen Anne ruled
in his stead Defoe fell on evil times.
In those days the quarrels about religion were not yet over.
There was a party in the Church which would very willingly have
seen the Nonconformists or Dissenters persecuted. Dissenters
were like to have an evil time. To show how wrong persecution
was, Defoe wrote a little pamphlet which he called The Shortest
Way with the Dissenters. He wrote as if he were very angry
indeed with the Dissenters. He said they had been far too kindly
treated and that if he had his way he would make a law that
"whoever was found at a conventicle should be banished the nation
and the preacher be hanged. We should soon see an end of the
tale--they would all come to Church, and one age would make us
all one again."
Defoe meant this for satire. A satire is, you remember, a work
which holds up folly or wickedness to ridicule.
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