Part 3

The Prince de Rosymonte (p. 34) is James Graham, fourth Marquis and first Duke of Montrose (d. 1742).

The fact that, in several cases, the names used by Defoe are developed from family names and not the title seems to offer support for the contention that Atalantis Major was intended primarily for a Scottish audience. Further, Defoe's name for Marlborough--Heymuthius--comes from his one Scottish title, Baron Aymouth (now Eyemouth, a fishing town on the southeast coast of Scotland), and not from his better-known English title, the Duke of Marlborough.

State University College Brockport, New York

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

1. George Macaulay Trevelyan, England Under Queen Anne (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1948), III, 68.

2. These are Trevelyan's figures (op. cit., 73). W. A. Speck (Tory and Whig [London: Macmillan, 1970], p. 123) gives the Tories 332 seats and 181 seats to the Whigs in this election.

3. In point of fact, Harley's concern for the loyalty of the representative peers is unique in the history of these elections. In subsequent Parliaments, the Scottish peers seldom, if ever, voted against the Government--even at the trial of Lord Lovat in 1745-6. For one thing, almost without exception, the representative peers were dependent on governmental subsidies and this dependence increased during the course of the eighteenth century (see J. H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England [London: Penguin, 1973], p. 180; and Geoffrey Holmes, British Politics in the Age of Anne [London: Macmillan, 1967], p. 393). The practice of electing a representative peerage for Scotland was discontinued after 1782 (see Trevelyan, op. cit., 235).

4. Trevelyan, op. cit., 58.

5. James R. Sutherland, Defoe (London: Methuen, 1950), p. 179.

6. The Letters of Daniel Defoe, ed. by George Harris Healey (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), p. 296.

7. Ibid., pp. 294-295.

8. Healey reports that "in such issues as I have been able to find of the Scots Postman, or the New Edinburgh Gazette, there is no mention of the Scots Atalantis" (Letters, p. 306, n. 1). The title of this work and of Defoe's Atalantis Major are derived from Mrs. Manley's New Atalantis or Secret Memoirs and Manners of several Persons of Quality of both Sexes from the New Atalantis, an island in the Mediterranean (1709). The OED records that the word atalantis enjoyed a brief currency in the eighteenth century with the meaning, "a secret or scandalous history."

9. Letters, p. 307.

10. John Robert Moore, A Checklist of the Writings of Daniel Defoe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1960), p. 82.

11. Page 12, line 5: do is omitted before this; page 16, line 24: an for on; page 17, line 6: Grandfathers for Grandfather's; page 19, the catch-word, the for this; page 20, line 5: run for ran; page 22, line 22: of for off; page 28, the catch-word, they for the; page 36, the catch-word, Cha- for Courage; page 37, the catch-word, Lansd for Lands. In addition, there are several places where the printer uses eighteenth-century variant spellings such as ballances (pp. 5, 8), mannaged (p. 2), quallifie (p. 8), Soveraign (p. 41) and steddy (p. 15). Eighteenth-century orthographic practice would have permitted such spellings. The word entitled, however, appears on page five as both entituled and intituled.

12. None of the various copies I have examined contains typographical differences--even in the case of the typographical errors.

13. On page 38, line 25, the word Big is used where Large would have been the English usage; on page 42, line 3, the word Bann'd is used for Swore and defined in the text as an "Atalantic word"; on page 43, line 4, the word evite is used instead of avoid.

14. William Lee, Daniel Defoe: His Life, and Recently Discovered Writings (London: Hotten, 1869), I, 177; Paul Dottin, Daniel Defoe, trans. Louise Ragan (New York, Macaulay, 1929), p. 155; John Robert Moore, Daniel Defoe, Citizen of the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 191; and Moore, A Checklist of the Writings of Daniel Defoe(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962), p. 82.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Atalantis Major is reproduced from a copy of the first edition (1711) in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library (Shelf Mark: *PR/3404/A851). A typical type-page (p. 4) measures 158 × 82 mm.

Atalantis Major.

Printed in Olreeky, the Chief City of the North Part of Atalantis Major.

Anno Mundi 1711.

Atalantis Major.

There having been a large Account given to the World of several remarkable Adventures which happened lately in the famous Atalantis, an Island, which the ingenious Authors found placed in the Mediterranean Sea; the Success of which Accounts, but especially the Usefulness of the Relation, to the Ends for which they were designed, having been very remarkable, I thought it could not be unacceptable to the World, (especially to those who have been Already so delighted with News from that Island) to give a particular Historical Narration of some remarkable Transactions which happened in the Great Island, called, Atalantis Major, a famous well known Island, tho' much farther North, lying in the Ducaledonian Ocean, which Island it was my good Fortune to winter at, the last time I returned North about from China, by the Streights of Nassau and Wygates, and the Eastern Coast of Grand Tartary.

I have nothing to do to enquire, whether our late Authors mistook or not, in placing the Island Atalantis in the Mediterranean Sea, or, whether they might find some small Island of that Name among the infinite Crowd of Islands of the Egean Sea: But as the mighty Transactions of which my History shall be the faithful Relator, are of too great Consequence in the World to be brought forth on so mean a Stage; so the Place, and the mighty People, and by whom this Revolution of Affairs have been mannaged, are all suitable to the Greatness and Glory of the Actions themselves.

As Geographers have no doubt given a full Description of this famous Island, and allowed it due Place in the Globes, where it stands noted for the biggest of the Kind in the Northern World, I need spend none of your Time in the Description of the Place, excepting such as shall fall naturally in my Way, as I come to treat of the People, and historically of their Behaviour.

The Island is possest by a brave, generous, powerful and wealthy Nation, truly Great in their natural Gallantry of Spirit, terrible in the Field, rich in the Product of their Lands, more in their general Commerce, most of all in their Manufactures, Industry and Application: They have some few Errors in their Conduct, which seems owing to the Climate, which is cold and moist, or to their Diet, which is strong and luxurious, and particularly to their way of Living, which in Eating and Drinking, is high, to an Excess.