1698 POOR MAN'S PLEA 008. [DEFOE, Daniel.] The Poor Man's Plea to all proclamations, declarations, acts of Parliament, etc. Which have been, or shall be made, or publish'd, for a Reformation of Manners, and suppressing immorality in the nation. The second edition corrected. London: Printed for A. Baldwin, near the Oxford-Arms in Warwick-Lane. 1698. 4to. [4],28p. New Boards. Paper a little browned but a good copy. MOORS 20. WING D 841. This important pamphlet went through 5 different editions or issues between 1698 and 1700, none of them common. The first edition has one American location only, at Yale. This second edition has several locations in America but only one in Britain, The British Library. The Poor Man's Plea is one of the best and liveliest of Defoe's early pamphlets. Since they came to the throne William and Mary had made it clear that they desired to see a reformation of manners; every effort was to be made to discourage profanity, drunkenness, and lewdness. But, as every one knew, there was little hope of a genuine reformation so long as the magistrates were guilty of the very offences they punished and the fine gentleman was treated more leniently than the poor man. As a literary theme this idea can be traced in a clear line from Ben Jonson through Defoe to Fielding. What every one knew Defoe now expressed in a vigorous and unequivocal manner. Writing as a humble citizen, he stated frankly that until the nobility, gentry, justices of the peace, and clergy amended their own lives there was little excuse for setting the poor man in the stocks for his immoralities. There was nothing wrong with the laws: the trouble was that they were not impartially administered. "These are all cobweb laws, in which the small flies are catched, and the great ones break through. My Lord-Mayor has whipt about the poor beggars, and a few scandalous whores have been sent to the House of Correction; some alehousekeepers and vintners have been fined for drawing drink on the Sabbath-day; but all this falls upon us the mob, the poor plebeii, as if all the vice lay among us: for we do not find the rich drunkard carried before my Lord Mayor, nor a swearing lewd merchant fined, or set in the stocks. The man with a gold ring and gay cloths may swear before the Justice; may reel home through the open streets, and no man take any notice of it; but if a poor man get drunk, or swear and oath, he must to the stocks without remedy."