"Why, gentlemen," he retorted, "it would be more natural for you to think I am turned Turk than High-flier; and to make me a Mahometan would not be half so ridiculous as to make me say the Whigs are running down credit, when, on the contrary, I am still satisfied if there were no Whigs at this time, there would hardly be any such thing as credit left among us." "If the credit of the nation is to be maintained, we must all act as Whigs, because credit can be maintained upon no other foot.

Had the doctrine of non-resistance of tyranny been voted, had the Prerogative been exalted above the Law, and property subjected to absolute will, would Parliament have voted the funds?
Credit supposes Whigs lending and a Whig Government borrowing.

It is nonsense to talk of credit and passive submission." Had Defoe confined himself to lecturing those hot Whigs who were so afraid of the secret Jacobitism of Harley's colleagues that they were tempted to withdraw their money from the public stocks, posterity, unable to judge how far these fears were justified, and how far it was due to a happy accident that they were not realized, might have given him credit for sacrificing partisanship to patriotism.

This plea could hardly be used for another matter in which, with every show of reasonable fairness, he gave a virtual support to the Ministry.

We have seen how he spoke of Marlborough, and Godolphin's management of the army and the finances when the Whigs were in office.