Newspapers became less political, and their circulation extended from the coffee-houses, inns, and ale-houses to a new class of readers.

"They have of late," a writer in _Applebee's Journal_ says in 1725, "been taken in much by the women, especially the political ladies, to assist at the tea-table." Defoe seems to have taken an active part in making _Mist's Journal_ and _Applebee's Journal_, both Tory organs, suitable for this more frivolous section of the public.

This fell in with his purpose of diminishing the political weight of these journals, and at the same time increased their sale.

He converted them from rabid party agencies into registers of domestic news and vehicles of social disquisitions, sometimes grave, sometimes gay in subject, but uniformly bright and spirited in tone.
The raw materials of several of Defoe's elaborate tales, such as _Moll Flanders_ and _Colonel Jack_, are to be found in the columns of _Mist's_ and _Applebee's_.

In connexion with _Applebee's_ more particularly, Defoe went some way towards anticipating the work of the modern Special Correspondent.