From 1695 to 1699 he was an accountant to the commissioners of the glass duty and then associated with a brick and tile works in Tilbury. The business failed in 1703. Himself a Dissenter he mimicked the extreme attitudes of High Anglican Tories and pretended to argue for the extermination of all Dissenters. Nobody was amused, Defoe was arrested in May 1703, but released in return for services as a pamphleteer and intelligence agent to Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford, and the Tories. The poem was sold in the streets, the audience drank to his health while he stood in the pillory and read aloud his verses.
Actions receive their tincture from the times, And as they change are virtues made of crimes.
When the Tories fell from power Defoe continued to carry out intelligence work for the Whig government. In his own days Defoe was regarded as an unscrupulous, diabolical journalist. Defoe used a number of pen names, including Eye Witness, T.Taylor, and Andrew Morton, Merchant. His political writings were widely read and made him powerful enemies. It was published weekly, later three times a week and resembled a modern newspapers.