I'll do my best to save the ship.

I'll pump and heave and haul, and do anything I can, though he that pulls with me were my enemy.

The reason is plain.
We are all in the ship, and must sink or swim together." What could be more plausible?
What conduct more truly patriotic?
Indeed, it would be difficult to find fault with Defoe's behaviour, were it not for the rogue's protestations of inability to court the favour of great men, and his own subsequent confessions in his _Appeal to Honour and Justice_, as to what took place behind the scenes.

Immediately on the turn of affairs he took steps to secure that connexion with the Government, the existence of which he was always denying.

The day after Godolphin's displacement, he tells us, he waited on him, and "humbly asked his lordship's direction what course he should take." Godolphin at once assured him, in very much the same words that Harley had used before, that the change need make no difference to him; he was the Queen's servant, and all that had been done for him was by Her Majesty's special and particular direction; his business was to wait till he saw things settled, and then apply himself to the Ministers of State to receive Her Majesty's commands from them.