Daniel Defoe

The True-Born Englishman Daniel Defoe

The True-Born Englishman is a satirical poem published in 1701 by Daniel Defoe defending the then King of England William, who was Dutch-born, against xenophobic attacks by his political enemies, and ridiculing the notion of English racial purity. It quickly became popular. According to a preface Defoe supplied to an edition of 1703, the poem's declared target is not Englishness as such but English cultural xenophobia, against the cultural disturbance new immigrants caused. Defoe's argument was that the English nation as it already existed in his time was a product of various incoming European ethnic groups, from Ancient Britons to Anglo-Saxons, Normans and beyond.