When he yielded to the importunity of his Jacobite correspondents, or kicked against the taunts of the Whig organs about his wings being clipped--they, no more than he, knew how--his secret controllers had two ways of bringing him to reason.

Sometimes the Government prosecuted him, wisely choosing occasions for their displeasure on which they were likely to have popular feeling on their side.

At other times Defoe threatened to withdraw and have nothing more to do with the _Journal_.

Once or twice he carried this threat into execution.

His absence soon told on the circulation, and Mist entreated him to return, making promises of good behaviour for the future.
Further, Defoe commended himself to the gratitude of his unconscious dupe by sympathizing with him in his troubles, undertaking the conduct of the paper while he lay in prison, and editing two volumes of a selection of _Miscellany Letters_ from its columns.