Daniel Defoe - A Short Narrative of the Life and Actions of His Grace John, D. of Marlborogh

January of 1711 brought the decisive defeat at Brihuega which effectively took the issue of Spanish succession away; in the ensuing witch hunt, Almanza and the peace talks of 1709 were revived to distract the people. While these inquiries proceeded, England received word that France was ready to discuss terms. The delay between this (8 February) and France's formal proposal (2 May) was an anxious time for Harley and his schemers. Defoe was busy setting the stage for the outcome.

While Swift, the high Tory, could easily set about discrediting Marlborough, the hero and standard bearer, and, by so doing, weaken the Whig's position, Defoe's readers required different handling. His most effective writing at this time was in pamphlets which reached a wider audience and which were not bound by the consistency of the Review. Defoe and Swift, primed with the Minister's inside knowledge, set about to discredit the Whig ministry in basically the same way. In the 15 February Examiner , Swift wrote,

No Body, that I know of, did ever dispute the Duke of Marlborough's Courage, Conduct, or Success; they have been always unquestionable and will continue to be so, in spight of the Malice of his Enemies, or which is yet more, the Weakness of his Advocates. The Nation only wished to see him taken out of ill Hands, and put into better. But, what is all this to the Conduct of the late Ministry, the shameful Mismanagements in Spain, or the wrong Steps in the Treaty of Peace… 6 6 Examiner , February 15, 1711. Herbert Davis, ed., The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1940), p. 87.

Defoe remarks, "our General wants neither Conduct or Courage" and describes his greatest successes as "daughters to preserve his Memory" while dissociating him somewhat from the Jacobites, Whigs, and "business of [making] peace and war." When the Review finally discusses Marlborough's fall, Defoe suggests that the "greatest Guilt … is the Error in Policy, and Prudence among his Friends." 7 7 Defoe's Review , January 22, 1712. Both writers presented the Duke as a means to an end and discredited him on personal grounds (avarice, ambition) thereby protecting the military hero and the newborn glory of England fathered by his victories. 8 8 Cf. discussions of this in John Ross, Swift and Defoe: A Study in Relationship (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1941); Richard I. Cook, Jonathan Swift as A Tory Pamphleteer (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967), and Irvin Ehrenpreis, Swift: The Man, His Works and the Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), ii, pp. 450ff. and 526ff. Faced with Dissenters and moderate Whig readers, Defoe's Review had to seem to oppose Swift's Examiner with its sneers at trade; not only must it be consistent but it was obliged to shift its readers' attention more slowly to the earlier failures of the Whig ministry and the rich commercial advantages gained in the separate peace.

The Life of Marlborough is part of a stream of pamphlets which Defoe wrote supporting the Harley administration; A Supplement to the Faults on Both Sides , a discussion of the Sacheverell case by two "displac'd officers of state," Rogues on Both Sides , a study in contrasts between old and new Whigs, and old, high flyer, and new Tories, and A Seasonable Caution to the General Assembly were published immediately before and after. That same year, his pamphlets discuss the October Club, the Spanish succession, "Mr. Harley," and the state of religion. By summer when the peace was nearly assured though still secret, Defoe was writing Reasons for a Peace; Or, the War at an End .

Taken in chronological order, Defoe's 1711 pamphlets indicate two emerging directions: first, the reasons for ending the war become more positive and entirely unconcerned with the General, and, second, Defoe's comments about the Duke become less wholeheartedly admiring, especially in No Queen; Or, No General . Rogues on Both Sides is witty praise for moderate men who act "according to English principles of Law and Liberty regardless of People and Party" rather than believing any demagogue who "cries it rains butter'd Turnips." After this, the pamphlets become more informative and solemn – Defoe demonstrates Whigs and Tories want the same things and that the country bleeds to death. Armageddon; or the Necessity of Carrying on the War (30 October 1711), Reasons Why This Nation Ought to put a speedy End to this Expensive War (6 October), and Reasons for a Peace: or, the War at an End , for example, catalog the economic ailments – taxes, pirates, hard to replace sailors and soldiers killed, but far worse, a decline in trade resulting in closed shops and declining manufacturing increasing unemployment – "the whole Kingdom sold to Usury" and "Consumption of the Growth of the Country." As the year passed, Defoe mentioned Marlborough less and less, but the General's possible mistakes were progressively forced into balance with his victories. While seeming to be moderate, Defoe both tempers his readers' opinions of the Duke and turns their attention to other issues.

The techniques and movement in No Queen: Or, No General (10 January 1712) parallel the techniques and movement in the 1711 pamphlets. In this 1712 pamphlet, Defoe's double-edged balance sheet is most obvious; in the first six pages he lists the charges against the General which he will not discuss – this reminds his readers of every possible failing and, because of the language ("I'le forbear to lessen his Glorious Character by Reckoning the Number of the Slain, or counting the Cost of the Towns"), the significance of each "ignored" charge is increased. Defoe recounts the economic issues at stake and insists that when Marlborough's "blinded party" made him its representative, regardless of his intentions, he became a formidable threat to the Queen and had to be removed. The pamphlet gradually turns to the destructiveness of party factions and by the patriotic ending ("Alas, what a Condition were Britain in if her Fate depended upon the Life, or Gallantry, or Merit, of one Man"), Marlborough is no longer an issue.

In the Life , Defoe defends the general from the charge of avarice, the most plausible charge that the journalists were propagating. Marlborough's courage and skill had also been called into question in such papers as The Post Boy , and a spurious debate raged which could only injure Marlborough over the gratitude of the nation. Defoe alludes to pamphlets which impugn great men and represent them as "unworthy of the Favour of the Prince" slanting the charge that Marlborough had been rewarded perhaps too bountifully in order to imply that such writers were malicious, uninformed, and ungrateful. Furthermore, Defoe says, Marlborough deserved his reward, having bought it at a dear rate, and it was no more than what "in all Times belong'd to Generals." Indeed, Marlborough's successor, the Duke of Ormond, received the same bread perquisite and percentage of foreign pay, but Defoe chooses to "defend" Marlborough not with comparable facts which would destroy the credibility of the attacking group, but rather with passing references to the two other generals with whom he had to divide the money and with the profits of sea captains and petty clerks in yards and stores! With descriptions of the fitting appearance for generals and Marlborough's sobriety in the field, Defoe tips the scales in Marlborough's favor. That he ends the section with

Indeed Generals, tho' the most accomplish'd Heroes, are but Men, they are not Infallible, but may be mistaken as well as other Mortals, they are subject to Faults and Infirmities as well as their Fellow-Creatures; but then their great Services for the good of their Country ought to be cast into the Ballance, against their humane Mistakes; and not only Charity, but Self-consideration should give them very good Quarter, unless their Faults are prov'd to be Wilful and Contumacious.(38)