This resignation of the simple single-minded patriot to the pains and penalties of honesty, naturally added to the rage of the party with whose factious proceedings he would have nothing to do; and yet it has always been thought an extraordinary instance of party spite that the Whigs should have instituted a prosecution against him, on the alleged ground that a certain remarkable series of Tracts were written in favour of the Pretender.

Towards the end of 1712 Defoe had issued _A Seasonable Warning and Caution against the Insinuations of Papists and Jacobites in favour of the Pretender_.
No charge of Jacobitism could be made against a pamphlet containing such a sentence as this:-- "Think, then, dear Britons! what a King this Pretender must be! a papist by inclination; a tyrant by education; a Frenchman by honour and obligation;--and how long will your liberties last you in this condition?
And when your liberties are gone, how long will your religion remain?
When your hands are tied; when armies bind you; when power oppresses you; when a tyrant disarms you; when a Popish French tyrant reigns over you; by what means or methods can you pretend to maintain your Protestant religion ?" A second pamphlet, _Hannibal at the Gates_, strongly urging party union and the banishment of factious spirit, was equally unmistakable in tone.
The titles of the following three of the series were more startling:--_Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover_--_And what if the Pretender should come?
or Some considerations of the advantages and real consequences of the Pretender's possessing the Crown of Great Britain_--_An Answer to a Question that nobody thinks of, viz.

But what if the Queen should die ?_ The contents, however, were plainly ironical.

The main reason against the Succession of the Prince of Hanover was that it might be wise for the nation to take a short turn of a French, Popish, hereditary-right _regime_ in the first place as an emetic.

Emetics were good for the health of individuals, and there could be no better preparative for a healthy constitutional government than another experience of arbitrary power.