![Daniel Defoe 1706](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Daniel_Defoe_1706.jpg)
''The Shortest Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church'' is a
pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound book (that is, without a hard cover or binding). Pamphlets may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths, called a ''leaflet'' or it may consist of a ...
written by
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its ...
, first published anonymously in 1702. Defoe was prompted to write the pamphlet by the increased hostility towards
Dissenters
A dissenter (from the Latin ''dissentire'', "to disagree") is one who dissents (disagrees) in matters of opinion, belief, etc.
Usage in Christianity
Dissent from the Anglican church
In the social and religious history of England and Wales, and ...
in the wake of the accession of
Queen Anne to the throne.
The pamphlet is written in the same style as the
Tory
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...
publications that attacked Dissenters, and at the time of publication it was assumed by some to be a genuine vindication of their views. However, others believed the pamphlet to have been satire—a view that is shared by many modern scholars. The pamphlet raised embarrassing questions about the handling of the issue by the Tory ministry, and led to Defoe's arrest for
seditious libel
Sedition and seditious libel were criminal offences under English common law, and are still criminal offences in Canada. Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection a ...
. His imprisonment, during which he fell into bankruptcy, was to have a lasting influence on his subsequent writings. In the years after his release, Defoe published several pamphlets that attempted to explain its purpose and his own views.
Background
In 1702, King
William III William III or William the Third may refer to:
Kings
* William III of Sicily (c. 1186–c. 1198)
* William III of England and Ireland or William III of Orange or William II of Scotland (1650–1702)
* William III of the Netherlands and Luxembourg ...
died, and
Queen Anne succeeded to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. She was markedly less tolerant than William of the device known as "occasional conformity", whereby
Dissenters
A dissenter (from the Latin ''dissentire'', "to disagree") is one who dissents (disagrees) in matters of opinion, belief, etc.
Usage in Christianity
Dissent from the Anglican church
In the social and religious history of England and Wales, and ...
could qualify as members of the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
—and thereby hold public office—by attending a church service once a year. Defoe was supportive of religious freedom, though he was critical of the device and considered it hypocrisy. He had written against it in a pamphlet entitled ''An enquiry into occasional conformity: Shewing that the dissenters are no way concern'd in it'' (1698).
In the same year, hostility towards Dissenters increased. A
bill
Bill(s) may refer to:
Common meanings
* Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States)
* Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature
* Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer
* Bill, a bird or animal's beak
Plac ...
against occasional conformity was passed through the House of Commons and debated in the Lords.
Figures such as
Henry Sacheverell
Henry Sacheverell (; 8 February 1674 – 5 June 1724) was an English high church Anglican clergyman who achieved nationwide fame in 1709 after preaching an incendiary 5 November sermon. He was subsequently impeached by the House of Commons and ...
, a
high church
The term ''high church'' refers to beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, liturgy, and theology that emphasize formality and resistance to modernisation. Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term originate ...
clergyman, warned against Dissenters assuming positions of political power. His lead was followed by the
Tory
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. Th ...
press, who published a number of sermons and pamphlets making similar arguments.
[Horsley 1976, p. 407.] In December, Defoe published his own pamphlet, ''The Shortest Way'', assuming the same stylistic conventions as the Sacheverell and the Tory publications.
Synopsis
![Battle of Naseby](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Battle_of_Naseby.jpg)
''The Shortest Way with the Dissenters; or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church''
is a pamphlet consisting of twenty-nine pages. It opens with the fable of the Cock and the Horses. The Cock, lacking any perch in the stable, is forced to rest on the ground and in fear of the Horses moving around and stepping on him, advises: "Pray, Gentlefolks! let us stand still! for fear we should tread upon one another!” The speaker then applies this to the contemporary situation, with the Cock representing the Dissenters.
The next section accuses the Dissenters of involvement with various notorious and hideous events of the past century, including the
English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
and
Monmouth's Rebellion
The Monmouth Rebellion, also known as the Pitchfork Rebellion, the Revolt of the West or the West Country rebellion, was an attempt to depose James II, who in February 1685 succeeded his brother Charles II as king of England, Scotland and Ir ...
. The accusations become increasingly sinister, and at points the speaker directly addresses the Dissenters ("You have butchered one King! deposed another King! and made a Mock King of a third!"). A brief history is given of how past monarchs—from
James I James I may refer to:
People
*James I of Aragon (1208–1276)
*James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327)
*James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu
*James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347)
*James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...
to William III—have treated the Dissenters; in the opinion of the speaker, it is too leniently.
The major section comprises a series of arguments for why the Dissenters should be treated favourably ("They are very numerous", "That this is a time of war"). The speaker denounces each in turn and offers several counter-arguments, each gradually escalating in their severity. A vision is given of what will happen to the Church of England if it is not defended against the Dissenters. The pamphlet ends with a rallying call to action against the Dissenters in defence of the church ("Now let us ''crucify the Thieves''.")
Genre and style
''The Shortest Way'' has traditionally been classified as a satire, although this has been disputed by scholars. Miriam Laurenbaum has suggested that it is instead a form of
hoax
A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...
or "banter",
[Leranbaum 1974, p. 227.] and that Defoe does not use many of the features necessary for it to be considered a true satire. Paul Alkon describes the critical tradition surrounding the work as "asking mainly whether it is inadequate irony, deficient satire, or misused impersonation."
[Alkon 1976, S12.] Ashley Marshall suggests that "''The Shortest-Way'' is best understood not as insufficiently ironic but as a counterfeit, an intentional fake not meant to be decoded."
[Marshall, pp. 235–6.]
The difficulty for Defoe's contemporaries in assessing whether the work was ironic was the proximity of the speaker's voice to that of the High Anglicans whose views are being ridiculed.
[Marshall 2009, p. 234.] The pamphlet mixes both real observation and fabrication, and assumes the rhetorical style of his target.
[Horsley, pp. 410–11.] Defoe uses and imitates the language and metaphor of fanatical churchman, particularly Sacheverell's sermons; the speaker's comparison of the Dissenters to vipers is one that Sacheverell often made.
[Leranbaum 1974, pp. 238–240.] Although ''The Shortest Way'' does not parody the genre of the Anglican sermon, it does deploy some of the same structures; the initial
Aesopic fable of the Cock and the Horses is expanded upon in a way that parallels the use of a biblical quotation to initiate a sermon.
[Alkon 1976, S15.]
Reception and legacy
![RobertHarleyInColour](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/RobertHarleyInColour.jpg)
Upon its publication, ''The Shortest Way'' provoked immediate and passionate reactions from both sides of the debate. Some made use of it as a genuine vindication of the anti-Dissenter opinion, although speculation later occurred over whether it was ironic.
[Horsley 1976, p. 408.] The pamphlet generated a great deal of publicity over the handling of the issue by the Tory ministry. This resulted in the issuing of a warrant by the High Tory
Secretary of State for the Southern Department
The Secretary of State for the Southern Department was a position in the cabinet of the government of the Kingdom of Great Britain up to 1782, when the Southern Department became the Home Office.
History
Before 1782, the responsibilities of ...
, the
Earl of Nottingham
:''See also Earl of Winchilsea''
Earl of Nottingham is a title that has been created seven times in the Peerage of England. It was first created for John de Mowbray in 1377, at the coronation of Richard II. As this creation could only pass to ...
, for the arrest of Defoe on the charge of
seditious libel
Sedition and seditious libel were criminal offences under English common law, and are still criminal offences in Canada. Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection a ...
, the order being given to "… make Strict and diligent Search for Daniel Fooe and him having found you are to apprehend and seize together with his Papers for high Crime and misdemeanours and to bring him before me …"
[Horsley 1976, p. 408.]
Defoe was finally imprisoned on 21 May 1703, after avoiding his summons and evading capture. He was fined, made to stand in the
pillory
The pillory is a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse. The pillory is related to the stocks ...
on three occasions and remained in prison until November; in the meantime, his business affairs sank into ruin. The whole affair left a lasting impression on him, which can be felt in his writings.
In the years following his arrest and release, Defoe made several attempts to explain ''The Shortest Way'' and his own viewpoint. Amongst the series of explanatory pamphlets doing this are ''An Explanation of a Late Pamphlet, Entituled, The Shortest Way…'' (1703) and ''A Dialogue Between a Dissenter and the Observator'' (1703).
The suspected involvement of the Tory Speaker of the House,
Robert Harley, in obtaining the release of Defoe is credited as the beginning of their professional relationship, in which Defoe worked as a propagandist for Harley, after he succeeded Nottingham as Secretary of State in 1704.
Modern scholarly reception has considered ''The Shortest Way'' in negative terms, as a failed satire, or as using irony so slight as to be undetectable.
[Marshall 2009, pp. 234–5.] Alternately, the anonymous pamphlet may have been a counterfeit intended to be believed under the assumption that the true author would not be discovered.
Such a conclusion cites the contemporary reaction to the work, how it failed to deliver its objectives and also caused its author such problems. If critics have offered praise, it is the extent to which Defoe managed to impersonate the style of his subjects, so as to be indistinguishable from them.
[Alkon 1976, p. S12.] ''The Shortest Way'' is frequently contrasted with another work of irony in the eighteenth century, which is considered to have succeeded in its use of the device,
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...
's ''
A Modest Proposal
''A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick'', commonly referred to as ''A Modest Proposal'', is a Juvenalian satirical essay wr ...
'' (1729).
[Marshall 2009, p. 235.]
Notes
References
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*
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External links
''An enquiry into occasional conformity: Shewing that the dissenters are no way concern'd in it. By the author of the preface to Mr. Howe.''at University of Oxford Text Archive (OTA)
at
Bartleby.com
Bartleby.com was an electronic text archive, headquartered in Los Angeles (USA) and named for Herman Melville's story "Bartleby, the Scrivener". It was initiated with the name "Project Bartleby" in January 1993 as a collection of classic literatur ...
*
ttp://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/defoe/shortest.html ''Shortest Way''from
Indiana University Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, or simply Indiana) is a public university, public research university in Bloomington, Indiana. It is the flagship university, flagship campus of Indiana University and, with ...
''The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters: or Proposals for the Establishment of the Church.''from
Lehigh University
Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epis ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shortest Way
Works by Daniel Defoe
Dissent
Pamphlets
1702 books