He gave evidence late in life of his love for literature by forming the collection of manuscripts known as the Harleian, and we know from Swift that he was deeply impressed with the importance of having allies in the Press.

He entered upon office in May, 1704, and one of his first acts was to convey to Defoe the message, "Pray, ask that gentleman what I can do for him." Defoe replied by likening himself to the blind man in the parable, and paraphrasing his prayer, "Lord, that I may receive my sight!" He would not seem to have obtained his liberty immediately, but, through Harley's influence, he was set free towards the end of July or the beginning of August.

The Queen also, he afterwards said, "was pleased particularly to inquire into his circumstances and family, and by Lord Treasurer Godolphin to send a considerable supply to his wife and family, and to send him to the prison money to pay his fine and the expenses of his discharge." On what condition was Defoe released?
On condition, according to the _Elegy on the Author of the True-Born Englishman_, which he published immediately after his discharge, that he should keep silence for seven years, or at least "not write what some people might not like." To the public he represented himself as a martyr grudgingly released by the Government, and restrained from attacking them only by his own bond and the fear of legal penalties.
"Memento Mori here I stand, With silent lips but speaking hand; A walking shadow of a Poet, But bound to hold my tongue and never show it.
A monument of injury, A sacrifice to legal t( yrann)y." "For shame, gentlemen," he humorously cries to his enemies, "do not strike a dead man; beware, scribblers, of fathering your pasquinades against authority upon me; for seven years the True-Born Englishman is tied under sureties and penalties not to write." "To seven long years of silence I betake, Perhaps by then I may forget to speak." This elegy he has been permitted to publish as his last speech and dying confession-- "When malefactors come to die They claim uncommon liberty: Freedom of speech gives no distaste, They let them talk at large, because they talk their last." The public could hardly have supposed from this what Defoe afterwards admitted to have been the true state of the case, namely, that on leaving prison he was taken into the service of the Government.

He obtained an appointment, that is to say a pension, from the Queen, and was employed on secret services.

When charged afterwards with having written by Harley's instructions, he denied this, but admitted the existence of certain "capitulations," in which he stipulated for liberty to write according to his own judgment, guided only by a sense of gratitude to his benefactor.