Lord Townshend was succeeded in the Home Secretary's office by Lord Stanhope.

Thereupon Defoe judged it expedient to write to a private secretary, Mr.de la Faye, explaining at length his position.

This letter along with five others, also designed to prevent misconstruction by his employers, lay in the State Paper Office till the year 1864, when the "whole packet" fell into the hands of Mr.Lee.The following succinct fragment of autobiography is dated April 26, 1718.
"Though I doubt not but you have acquainted my Lord Stanhope with what humble sense of his lordship's goodness I received the account you were pleased to give me, that my little services are accepted, and that his lordship is satisfied to go upon the foot of former capitulations, etc.; yet I confess, Sir, I have been anxious upon many accounts, with respect as well to the service itself as my own safety, lest my lord may think himself ill-served by me, even when I have best performed my duty." "I thought it therefore not only a debt to myself, but a duty to his lordship, that I should give his lordship a short account, as clear as I can, how far my former instructions empowered me to act, and in a word what this little piece of service is, for which I am so much a subject of his lordship's present favour and bounty." "It was in the Ministry of my Lord Townshend, when my Lord Chief Justice Parker, to whom I stand obliged for the favour, was pleased so far to state my case that notwithstanding the misrepresentations under which I had suffered, and notwithstanding some mistakes which I was the first to acknowledge, I was so happy as to be believed in the professions I made of a sincere attachment to the interest of the present Government, and, speaking with all possible humility, I hope I have not dishonoured my Lord Parker's recommendation." "In considering, after this, which way I might be rendered most useful to the Government, it was proposed by my Lord Townshend that I should still appear as if I were, as before, under the displeasure of the Government, and separated from the Whigs; and that I might be more serviceable in a kind of disguise than if I appeared openly; and upon this foot a weekly paper, which I was at first directed to write, in opposition to a scandalous paper called the _Shift Shifted_, was laid aside, and the first thing I engaged in was a monthly book called _Mercurius Politicus_, of which presently.

In the interval of this, Dyer, the _News-Letter_ writer, having been dead, and Dormer, his successor, being unable by his troubles to carry on that work, I had an offer of a share in the property, as well as in the management of that work." "I immediately acquainted my Lord Townshend of it, who, by Mr.Buckley, let me know it would be a very acceptable piece of service; for that letter was really very prejudicial to the public, and the most difficult to come at in a judicial way in case of offence given.

My lord was pleased to add, by Mr.Buckley, that he would consider my service in that case, as he afterwards did." "Upon this I engaged in it; and that so far, that though the property was not wholly my own, yet the conduct and government of the style and news was so entirely in me, that I ventured to assure his lordship the sting of that mischievous paper should be entirely taken out, though it was granted that the style should continue Tory as it was, that the party might be amused and not set up another, which would have destroyed the design, and this part I therefore take entirely on myself still." "This went on for a year, before my Lord Townshend went out of the office; and his lordship, in consideration of this service, made me the appointment which Mr.Buckley knows of, with promise of a further allowance as service presented." "My Lord Sunderland, to whose goodness I had many years ago been obliged, when I was in a secret commission sent to Scotland, was pleased to approve and continue this service, and the appointment annexed; and with his lordship's approbation, I introduced myself, in the disguise of a translator of the foreign news, to be so far concerned in this weekly paper of _Mist's_ as to be able to keep it within the circle of a secret management, also prevent the mischievous part of it; and yet neither Mist, or any of those concerned with him, have the least guess or suspicion by whose direction I do it." "But here it becomes necessary to acquaint my lord (as I hinted to you, Sir), that this paper, called the _Journal_, is not in myself in property, as the other, only in management; with this express difference, that if anything happens to be put in without my knowledge, which may give offence, or if anything slips my observation which may be ill-taken, his lordship shall be sure always to know whether he has a servant to reprove or a stranger to correct." "Upon the whole, however, this is the consequence, that by this management, the weekly _Journal_, and _Dormer's Letter_, as also the _Mercurius Politicus_, which is in the same nature of management as the _Journal_, will be always kept (mistakes excepted) to pass as Tory papers and yet, be disabled and enervated, so as to do no mischief or give any offence to the Government." Others of the tell-tale letters show us in detail how Defoe acquitted himself of his engagements to the Government--bowing, as he said, in the house of Rimmon.