All his writings, with so few exceptions that they may reasonably be supposed to fall within the category, were _pieces de circonstance_.

Whenever any distinguished person died or otherwise engaged public attention, no matter how distinguished, whether as a politician, a criminal, or a divine, Defoe lost no time in bringing out a biography.

It was in such emergencies that he produced his memoirs of Charles XII., Peter the Great, Count Patkul, the Duke of Shrewsbury, Baron de Goertz, the Rev.
Daniel Williams, Captain Avery the King of the Pirates, Dominique Cartouche, Rob Roy, Jonathan Wild, Jack Sheppard, Duncan Campbell.

When the day had been fixed for the Earl of Oxford's trial for high treason, Defoe issued the fictitious _Minutes of the Secret Negotiations of Mons.
Mesnager_ at the English Court during his ministry.

We owe the _Journal of the Plague in 1665_ to a visitation which fell upon France in 1721, and caused much apprehension in England.