In one he speaks of a traitorous pamphlet which he has stopped at the press, and begs the Secretary to assure his superiors that he has the original in safe keeping, and that no eye but his own has seen it.

In another he apologizes for an obnoxious paragraph which had crept into _Mist's Journal_, avowing that "Mr.Mist did it, after I had looked over what he had gotten together," that he [Defoe] had no concern in it, directly or indirectly, and that he thought himself obliged to notice this, to make good what he said in his last, viz.

that if any mistake happened, Lord Stanhope should always know whether he had a servant to reprove or a stranger to punish.

In another he expresses his alarm at hearing of a private suit against Morphew, the printer of the _Mercurius Politicus_, for a passage in that paper, and explains, first, that the obnoxious passage appeared two years before, and was consequently covered by a capitulation giving him indemnity for all former mistakes; secondly, that the thing itself was not his, neither could any one pretend to charge it on him, and consequently it could not be adduced as proof of any failure in his duty.

In another letter he gives an account of a new treaty with Mist.