His reception by the mob was very different from that accorded to the anti-Jacobite Fuller, a scurrilous rogue who had tried to make a few pounds by a Plain Proof that the Chevalier was a supposititious child.

The author of the _True-Born Englishman_ was a popular favourite, and his exhibition in the pillory was an occasion of triumph and not of ignominy to him.

A ring of admirers was formed round the place of punishment, and bunches of flowers instead of handfuls of garbage were thrown at the criminal.

Tankards of ale and stoups of wine were drunk in his honour by the multitude whom he had delighted with his racy verse and charmed by his bold defiance of the authorities.
The enthusiasm was increased by the timely publication of a _Hymn to the Pillory_, in which Defoe boldly declared the iniquity of his sentence, and pointed out to the Government more proper objects of their severity.
Atheists ought to stand there, he said, profligate beaux, swindling stock-jobbers, fanatic Jacobites, and the commanders who had brought the English fleet into disgrace.

As for him, his only fault lay in his not being understood; but he was perhaps justly punished for being such a fool as to trust his meaning to irony.