William dissolved his Long Parliament, and found the new House as warlike as the former had been peaceful.

"Of all the nations in the world," cried Defoe, in commenting on this sudden change of mood, "there is none that I know of so entirely governed by their humour as the English." For ten months Defoe had been vehemently but vainly striving to accomplish by argument what had been wrought in an instant by the French King's insufferable insult.

It is one of the most brilliant periods of his political activity.

Comparatively undistinguished before, he now, at the age of forty, stepped into the foremost rank of publicists.

He lost not a moment in throwing himself into the fray as the champion of the king's policy.