The _Review_ at one time had declared its main subject to be trade, but had claimed a liberty of digression under which the main subject had all but disappeared.

At last, however, in May, 1713, when popular excitement and hot Parliamentary debates were expected on the Commercial Treaty with France, an exclusively trading paper was established, entitled _Mercator_.

Defoe denied being the author--that is, conductor or editor of this paper--and said that he had not power to put what he would into it; which may have been literally true.

Every number, however, bears traces of his hand or guidance; _Mercator_ is identical in opinions, style, and spirit with the _Review_, differing only in the greater openness of its attacks upon the opposition of the Whigs to the Treaty of Commerce.

Party spirit was so violent that summer, after the publication of the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht, that Defoe was probably glad to shelter himself under the responsibility of another name, he had flaunted the cloak of impartial advice till it had become a thing of shreds and patches.
To prove that the balance of trade, in spite of a prevailing impression to the contrary, not only might be, but had been, on the side of England, was the chief purpose of _Mercator_.