He was found guilty of a seditious libel, and sentenced to pay a fine of 200 marks to the Queen, stand three times in the pillory, be imprisoned during the Queen's pleasure, and find sureties for his good behaviour for seven years.
Defoe complained that three Dissenting ministers, whose poor he had fed in the days of his prosperity, had refused to visit him during his confinement in Newgate.

There was, doubtless, a want of charity in their action, but there was also a want of honesty in his complaint.

If he applied for their spiritual ministrations, they had considerable reason for treating his application as a piece of provoking effrontery.

Though Defoe was in prison for this banter upon the High-fliers, it is a mistake to regard him as a martyr, except by accident, to the cause of Toleration as we understand it now, and as the Dissenters bore the brunt of the battle for it then.

Before his trial and conviction, while he lay in prison, he issued an exposition of his views of a fair Toleration in a tract entitled _The Shortest Way to Peace and Union_.