A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND

Review and was full of political commentary, lively interviews with thieves and murderers, and
gossip about current scandals. He was becoming a power with his pen.
He obtained his freedom by approaching the Lord Treasurer with a scheme that was worthy of
Machiavelli. He suggested that the government needed a network of informers to point out
potential critics and enemies: in short, an army of spies. The Lord Treasurer was just the man to
approach with such a sinister idea; Robert Harley was a born schemer, a man of whom a
contemporary wrote: ‘He loved tricks, even where not necessary, but from an inward satisfaction he
took in applauding his own cunning. If any man was ever born under the necessity of being a
knave, he was.’ It is a description that applies equally well to Defoe.
The result was that Queen Anne was prevailed upon to release Defoe from prison, and Defoe
proceeded to travel the country and build up a network of agents. It would hardly be an
exaggeration to call him the father of the police state. He laid down the basic rules for spying. Each
agent had to appear to be an ordinary citizen; every one had to be unknown to the others. The aim
was unobtrusive thought-control of the people of England. And the scheme was amazingly
successful - in fact, Defoe’s network became the foundation of the British Secret Service. And he
quickly established its value by playing a significant part in the union of England and Scotland into
one country called Great Britain. The English liked the idea; the Scots were dubious. Defoe went
off to Scotland in 1706, with half a dozen plausible cover stories - that he was a ship-builder, a
wool merchant, a fish merchant, and so on. He became intimate with various government ministers
in Scotland, and quietly influenced opinion. In May 1707, Scotland and England became Great
Britain, and Defoe returned home well satisfied.
In 1710, the Whig (i.e. Liberal) government fell; Defoe, who had made his reputation as a fighter
for liberal principles, quickly switched sides, declaring, with his usual glibness, that he cared more
for his country than for party prejudice. But in 1714, Harley - who had become an alcoholic - was
dismissed; Queen Anne died a few days later, and a Whig administration came into power under
George I. Defoe was thrown into prison, and although he obtained his freedom, he was soon back
in jail again on a charge of libelling the Earl of Anglesey. Once again, he offered his services as a
spy. And the Whigs, who knew his abilities, decided that a discredited Tory might make an
excellent spy - particularly if everyone assumed he was still in disgrace. He might, as an ‘enemy’ of
the government, find out what their opponents were planning. And at the moment, their opponents
were not the Tories so much as the Jacobites -supporters of the house of Stuart. Under the guise of
a government opponent, Defoe gained the confidence of various anti-government newspapers, and
was soon using his Machiavellian skills to suppress anything the government disliked.
Sooner or later, he was bound to be found out. One of his dupes was a man called Mist, who ran a
Jacobite newspaper. Mist printed a letter criticising the government without showing it to Defoe,
and when he was summoned before government ministers tried to put the blame on Defoe. The
Whigs began to suspect that Defoe was doubly treacherous. The breach was healed, but Defoe
seems to have realised that his days as a double-dealer were numbered. He had to find some other
way of making a living. He recollected that he possessed the material for an interesting narrative. In
1704, a Scottish pirate named Alexander Selkirk had quarrelled with his pirate captain and been
marooned, at his own request, on an uninhabited island called Juan Fernandez. He spent five years
there before he was rescued, and when he returned to England, became a celebrity. Defoe probably
went to see him in Bristol in 1713, and bought his papers for a trifling sum. Using this material as a
basis, Defoe dashed off Robinson Crusoe. The book appeared in 1719, and immediately became a
classic. Unfortunately for Defoe, it instantly appeared in several pirated editions, so he made less