Defoe’s Review

Numb. 40.
[173]

The Affairs of Sweden, which lay before me, had gone on in a due Chain of things in this Review —- But the Author has been diverted by a Terrible Attack, made upon the Intrenchments of his Honesty, as to Story.

This has been a bloody Battail, the Action of Schellenbergh is a Fool to it; the Author of the Daily Courant with his 20 Regiments of Booksellers, Storm’d Our Counterscarp, and tho’ they have formerly attempted it, and were beaten off as in the Review N˚ 17. and 18. yet having now Muster’d up all their Forces, they came on with an assurance Peculiar to News-Writers ——- and gave all the World Notice of the victory they thought certain; Inviting them three Days together to come and see the Sport.

I hope the Readers will bear the disappointment of what they expected this time in course, as to the King of Sweden, and accept of the short History of this Pen and Ink War as follows.

The Author of the Review Printed a Letter, Directed to the Club; concerning a wrong Quotation of the Leiden Gazette, see Review N˚ 37. (read full text…)

Numb. 39.
[169]

EUROPE look’d without any concern upon the prodigious Conquests of the K. of Sweden; believing the Dane ought to be Chastis’d for so basely Invading the Dominions of a Prince, with whom he was in a strict League; without any Provocation, and without so much as a Declaration; and while that Prince was engag’d in a Bloody War, remote from his own Dominions.

But under all these Provocations, the King of Sweden used so much Moderation in his Victory, that he contented himself with forcing his Enemy to a Disadvantageous Peace, by which the Swede obtained great part of Schonen, a share in the Toll of the Sound, and a great many considerable Concessions.

But as Princes are not always capable of bounding their Ambition, and the Dangers of excess in Prosperity are very great, the King of Sweden pretending next Year, that the King of Denmark was Arming against him, but really vex’d at Heart, that he had let his Enemy slip out of his Hands, when he might have made an Entire Conquest of his Dominions; breaks the Peace, puts to sea with a great Fleet, Lands an Army in Seeland, and sits down again under the Walls of Copenhagen.

The Gallant Defence the King of Denmark made, how he would not quit the City, as his Councellors advis’d him, but resolv’d to be shut up with his Citizens; how he pitch’d his Royal Tent upon one of the Bastions of the City, and nearest to the Danger; that, as he said, he might call to his Soldiers, Come to the breach, and not bid them Go. How he Challeng’d the King of Sweden to fight him, hand to hand, for the Crown of Denmark, who told him for Answer, That Kings do not use to fight, but in good Company. These things I may hint for the Readers Diversion, and to Invite them to read the Histories of Those Times; but I omit Writing them at large, as Foreign to the present purpose. (read full text…)

Numb. 38.
[165]

I Hope, when the Readers of these Sheets expect me to make good the last Paragraph of the former Review, they do not at the same time look for an Indictment against the King of Sweden fill’d with all the long Scroul of Adverbs, that the Lawyers Croud into their Forms of Process, the Malitiouslys, Ambitiouslys, &c.

Or if they look for ill Language from me on that Head, and think I shall treat the King of Sweden with less respect than becomes me, to a Crown’d Head; such People will be equally mistaken.

I shall never forget when I mention that Prince, that I am speaking of, Charles the XIIth. King of Sweden, whose Glorious Ancestors have done such great Things for the Protestant Religion, as all the World cannot Parallel; that his Father was the general Mediator of the Peace of Riswyck: That he was the true Preserver of the Glory and Valour of his great Progenitors, that he charg’d at the Head of his Horse-Guards in the Battail of Bremen, and fir’d his Pistol in the Face of a Danish Collonel, when we was not above 16 years of Age, and gain’d the Victory by his extraordinary Courage.

I cannot forget that Carolus Gustavus the first King of this immediate Race, over-ran all Poland, drove King Cassimire quite out of his Kingdom, and being Invaded by the Dane, in a manner not much unlike the Present King of Poland’s Invading Livonia; viz. when the Swede was engag’d at a great distance with other Enemies; he quitted Poland after having ravag’d it in a dreadful manner, and in the depth of Winter, with an Army of old Iron-fac’d Swedes, as hard as the Ice they March’d on; began such a March as never was attempted in the World before; he March’d from Cracow in Poland, to Fredricksode in Holstein, and was upon the Dane before he had time to Examine, whether he flew through the Air, or march’d over Land; his very Approach frighted the Dane from the Continent, and presuming the Swede could not fly over the Sea, nor swim thro’ the Water, he took Sanctuary in the Isles of the Baltick, with his whole Army. The Swede, whom neither Winter by Land, nor want of Vessels by Sea, were capable of stopping, in the fury of his Undertaking; Assaulted the strong Frontier Town of Fredricksode, carried it Sword in hand, his Dragoons swimming thro’ the River, among the flakes of Ice, and put the Garrison to the Sword. (read full text…)

Numb. 37.
[161]

THe long Digression from the Course of our Story, which has now taken up two Reviews, has carried, I hope, its own weight with it —

As this Paper is farthest from a Design to write what should be disobliging to any body, much less to the Publick; so no body shall with reason, be able to Charge the Author with pursuing any Interest different from that of his Native Country.

But this makes more than a usual Parenthesis, and interruption to his Story; for that he thinks himself bound to explain himself, where he is not understood.

He has been told the Explication of his last Paper, was with too much Contempt of the Objectors, as if no body might misunderstand him, but what deserv’d the name of Fools. (read full text…)