In studying the economic history of the 18th century, for example, it is not enough to assume with Defoe that " gain is the design of merchandise."
At the time of his visit Daniel Defoe found thread-making in vogue, which employed the women while the men were at sea.
His book might almost be called the "Visions of Peter Bartholomew and others," and it is written in the plain matter-of-fact manner of Defoe's narratives.
Defoe's Review (1704-1713) dealt chiefly with politics and commerce, but the introduction in it of what its editor fittingly termed the "scandalous club " was another step nearer the papers of Steele and the periodical essayists, the first attempts to create an organized popular opinion in matters of taste and manners.
With few exceptions all the known events of Defoe's life are connected with authorship. In the older catalogues of his works two pamphlets, Speculum Crapegownorum, a satire on the clergy, and A Treatise against the Turks, are attributed to him before the accession of James II., but there seems to be no publication of his which is certainly genuine before The Character of Dr Annesley (1697).