ABSTRACT
Contemporary critics described the Shortest Way as “one of the most devilish Designs that ever was heard of,” an attempt to mobilise the Dissenters in order to “play the Old Game of Forty One over again.” It was suggested that Defoe “would by the villainous Insinuations of that pamphlet have frightened the Dissenters into another Rebellion.” Defoe outlines two possible interpretations of the polemical objective of the Shortest Way, both of which were put forward in all seriousness by contemporaries. Critics have been disturbed by the effect of Defoe’s rhetoric because it deceived too well. His impersonation of a High Churchman was so effective that the fictional projection which has been recognised as the basis of the success of Moll Flanders has been seen also as his principal strategy in the Shortest Way.
