ABSTRACT
The essays from The Review, The Spectator and The Freeholder in particular, share many of the preoccupations of that later writing. In The Review Daniel Defoe introduces the general reader to some of the principles of commerce, and explains its importance in society. The extract from The Idea of a Patriot King stands in contrast to these passages in its insistence that trade is declining for lack of the regulation and encouragement that could be afforded by the ideal statesman, the Patriot King. Generally speaking, all the Innumerables of Trade, come under these two Heads; Natural Produce, and Manufacture. Nature seems to have taken a particular Care to disseminate her Blessings among the different Regions of the World, with an Eye to this mutual Intercourse and Traffick among Mankind, that the Natives of the several Parts of the Globe might have a kind of Dependance upon one another, and be united together by their common Interest.
