31st July 1703: Daniel Defoe put in the pillory for seditious libel

Daniel Defoe’s pamphlet The Shortest Way with the Dissenters; or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church was released. It was written in response to the Anglican Tories passing the Act Preventing Occasional Conformity, which, in a nutshell, forced everyone holding public office to practice Anglican worship, rather than just showing up occasionally to take communion to fulfill their legal obligation, but otherwise not bothering with the Church of England.

Imitating the style of sermon of fanatical Anglican Tories, Defoe anonymously suggested in his pamphlet that enforcing the law would be much too time-consuming, and that it would be far more efficient to simply execute any such Dissenters and just be done with it

The problem was, he imitated the style too perfectly; the irony was lost on many of the more radical Anglicans (who assumed one of their ranks wrote the pamphlet) and they began speaking out in favor of execution as punishment for dissension. There were many Dissenters already holding public office who were understandably alarmed by this extreme stance and began very ostentatiously attending Anglican services in the morning while slipping out quietly to Dissenter worship later in the afternoon. Defoe wryly referred to these individuals as “playing Bo-Peep with God Almighty.”

Eventually, Defoe’s printer was forced to rat him out as the author of the failed satirical pamphlet and he was tried at the Old Bailey and sentenced to a large fine, jail time (until he could pay off the large fine), and three excruciating days in the pillory.