Like his hero, he had several plantations, and companions to help him in working them.

He was connected with four journals, and from this source alone his income must have been considerable.

Besides this, he was producing separate works at the rate, on an average, of six a year, some of them pamphlets, some of them considerable volumes, all of them calculated to the wants of the time, and several of them extremely popular, running through three or four editions in as many months.

Then he had his salary from the Government, which he delicately hints at in one of his extant letters as being overdue.

Further, the advertisement of a lost pocket-book in 1726, containing a list of Notes and Bills in which Defoe's name twice appears, seems to show that he still found time for commercial transactions outside literature.[6] Altogether Defoe was exceedingly prosperous, dropped all pretence of poverty, built a large house at Stoke Newington, with stables and pleasure-grounds, and kept a coach.
[Footnote 6: _Lee's Life_, vol.i.pp.