Daniel Defoe is of course best known as the man who wrote Robinson Crusoe. He was born in London probably in the early 1660s and his father, James Foe, was a tallow chandler - the change of name may have been an attempt to dissociate himself from his family's humble origins. Variously described as a businessman, traveller, debtor, soldier, secret agent, wine merchant and political pamphleteer, his main claim to fame is through his writings and a legitimate claim to be the father of the English novel.

Daniel Defoe

Among over 500 works of literature is his Impartial Account of the Late Famous Siege of Gibraltar which was published 1728. A selection of paragraphs taken from this essay are shown below.

The Rock in 1727 - The grid lines probably denotethe method used by the artist to gain an accurate two-dimensional likeness ( Unknown Spanish artist )

How we Buried our Dead -Part 1The dead men were expeditiously and regularly buried to prevent their being offensive and infectious - which otherwise they might soon have been in our warm situation. Those that died in the morning were buried in the evening, those that died in the evening were buried in the morning; and the same proportion of time was generally observed for the rest.But we had like to have been a little too hasty with a private man of Colonel Clayton's regiment - who, going off duty, fell down in the way to his quarters and seemed to all appearances dead; in a few hours after which we wrapped