dered incapable by law of holding employments. During the course of these troubles, the emperors of Blefuscu did frequently expostulate by their ambassadors, accusing us of making a schism in religion by offending against a fundamental doctrine of our great prophet Lustrog, in the fiftyfourth chapter of the Blundecral (which is their Alcoran.) This however is thought to be a mere strain upon the text; for the words are these; "That all true believers "break their eggs at the convenient end." And which is the convenient end, should in my humble opinion be left to every man's conscience, or at least in the power of the chief magistrate to determine. Now, the Big-endian exiles have found so much credit in the emperor of Blefuscu's court, and so much private assistance and encouragement from their party here at home, that a bloody war hath been carried on between the two empires for six-and-thirty moons, with various success; during which time we have lost forty capital ships, and a much greater number of smaller vessels, together with thirty thousand of our best seamen and soldiers; and the damage received by the enemy is reckoned to be somewhat greater than ours. However, they have now equipped a numerous fleet, and are just preparing to make a descent upon us; and his imperial majesty, placing a great confidence in your valour and strength, hath commanded me to lay this account of his affairs before you. I desired the secretary to present my humble duty to the emperor, and to let him know, that I thought it would not be come me, who was a foreigner, to interfere with parties; but I was ready with the hazard of my life to defend his person and state against all invaders*. CHAP. V. The author, by an extraordinary stratagem prevents an invasion. A high title of honour is conferred upon him. Ambassadors arrive from the emperor of Blefuscu, and sue for peace. The empress's apartment on fire by an accident; the author instrumental in saving the rest of the palace. The empire of Blefuscu is an island, situated to the north-east side of Lilliput, *Gulliver, without examining the subject of dispute readily engaged to defend the emperor against invasion: because he knew that no such monarch bad a right to invade the dominions of another, for the propagation of truth. from whence it is parted only by a channel of eight hundred yards wide. I had not yet seen it, and upon this notice of an intended invasion I avoided appearing on that side of the coast, for fear of being discovered by some of the enemy's ships, who had received no intelligence of me, all intercourse between the two empires having been strictly forbidden during the war upon pain of death, and an embargo laid by our emperor upon all vessels whatsoever. I communicated to his majesty a project I formed of seizing the enemy's whole fleet; which our scouts assured us, lay at anchor in the harbour ready to sail with the first fair wind. I consulted the most experienced seamen upon the depth of the channel, which they had often plummed; whọ told me, that in the middle at high water it was seventy glumgluff's deep, which is about six feet of European measure; and the rest of it fifty glumgluffs at most. I walked towards the north-east coast, over against Blefuscu; where, lying down behind a hillock, I took out my small perspective-glass, and viewed the enemy's fleet at anchor, consisting of about fifty men of war, and a great number of transports; I then came back to my house, and gave orders (for which I had a warrant) for a great quantity of the strongest cable and bars of iron. The cable was about as thick as packthread, and the bars of the length and size of a knitting-needle. I trebled the cable to make it stronger, and for the same reason I twisted three of the iron bars together, bending the extremities into a hook. Having thus fixed fifty hooks to as many cables, I went back to the north-east coast, and putting off my coat, shoes, and stockings, walked into the sea in my leathern jerkin, about half an hour before high-water. I waded with what haste I could, and swam in the middle about thirty yards, till I felt ground; I arrived at the fleet in less than half an hour. The enemy was so frighted, when they saw me, that they leaped out of their ships, and swam to shore, where they could not be fewer than thirty thousand souls: I then took my tackling, and, fastening a hook to the whole at the prow of each, I tied all the cords together at the end. While I was thus employed, the enemy discharged several thousand arrows, many of which stuck in my hands and face; and, besides the excessive smart, gave me much disturbance in my work. My greatest apprehension was for mine eyes, let go which I should have infallibly lost, if I had not suddenly thought of an expedient. I kept among other little necessaries, a pair of spectacles in a private pocket, which, as I observed before, had escaped the emperor's searches. These I took out and fastened as strongly as I could upon my nose, and thus armed went on boldly with my work, in spite of the enemy's arrows, many of which struck against the glasses of my spectacles, but without any other effect, farther than a little to discompose them. I had now fastened all the hooks, and taking the knot in my hand began to pull; but not a ship would stir, for they were all too fast held by their anchors, so that the boldest part of my enterprize remained. I therefore the cord, and leaving the hooks fix ed to the ships, I resolutely cut with my knife the cables that fastened the anchors, receiving above two hundred shots in my face and hands; then I took up the knotted end of the cables, to which my hooks were tied, and with great ease drew fifty of the enemy's largest men of war after me. The Blofuscudians, who had not the least imagination of what I intended, were at first confounded with astonishment. They had seen me cut the cables, and thought my design was only to let the ships run adrift, or fall foul on each other; but when they perceived the whole fleet moving in ender, and saw me pulling at the end, they set up such a scream of grief and despair, as it is almost impossible to describe or con ceive. When I had got out of danger, I stopt awhile to pick out the arrows that stuck in my hands and face; and rubbed on some of the same ointment that was given me at my first arrival, as I have formerly mentioned. I then took off my spectacles, and waiting about an hour, till the tide was a little fallen, I waded through the middle with my cargo, and arrived safe at the royal port of Lilliput. The emperor and his whole court stood on the shore expecting the issue of this great adventure. They saw the ships move forward in a large half-moon, but could not discern me, who was up to my breast in water. When I advanced to the middle of the channel, they were yet in more pain, because I was under water to my neck. The emperor concluded me to be drowned, and that the enemy's fleet was approaching in a hostile manner; but he was soon eased of his fears, for the channel growing shallower every step I made, I came in a short time within hearing; and holding up the end of the cable, by which the fleet was fastened, I cried in a loud voice, "Long live the most puissant emperor of Lilliput!" This great prince received me at my landing with all possible encomiums, and created me a nardac upon the spot, which is the highest title of ho nour among them. His majesty desired I would take some other opportunity of bringing all the rest of his enemy's ships into his ports. And so unmeasurable is the ambition of princes, that he seemed to think on nothing less than reducing the whole empire of Blefuscu into a province, and governing it by a viceroy; of destroying the Big-endian exiles, and compelling that people to break the smaller end of their eggs, by which he would remain the sole monarch of the whole world. But I endeavoured to divert him from this design, by many arguments drawn from the topics of policy as well as justice: and I plainly protested, that I would never be an instrument of bringing a free and brave people into slavery. And when the matter was debated in council, the wisest, part of the ministry were of my opinion. This open bold declaration of mine was so opposite to the schemes and politics of his imperial majesty, that he could never forgive me; he mentioned it in a very art ful manner at council, where I was told that some of the wisest appeared at least by their silence to be of my opinion; but others, who were my secret enemies, could not forbear some expressions, which by a side-wind reflected on me. And from this time began an intrigue between his ma jesty and a junto of ministers maliciously bent against me, which broke out in less than two months, and had like to have ended in my utter destruction. Of so little weight are the greatest services to princes, when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions. About three weeks after this exploit, there arrived a solemn embassy from Ble fuscu, with humble offers of a peace; which advantageous to our emperor, wherewith was soon concluded upon conditions very I shall not trouble the reader. There were six ambassadors, with a train of about five hundred persons; and their entry was very magnificent, suitable to the grandeur of their master, and the importance of their business. When their treaty was finished, wherein I did them several good offices by the credit I now had, or at least appeared to have at court, their excellencies, who were privately told how much I had been their friend, made me a visit in form. They began with many compliments upon my valour and generosity, invited me to that kingdom in the emperor their master's name, and desired me to shew them some proofs of my prodigious strength, of which they had heard so many wonders; wherein I readily obliged them, but shall not trouble the reader with the particulars. When I had for some time entertained their excellencies to their infinite satisfaction and surprise, I desired they would do me the honour to present my most humble respects to the emperor their master, the renown of whose virtues had so justly filled the whole world with admiration, and whose royal person I resolved to attend before I returned to my own country: accordingly the next time I had the honour to see our emperor, I desired his general licence to wait on the Blefuscudian monarch, which he was pleased to grant me, as I could plainly perceive, in a very cold manner: but could not guess the reason, till I had a whisper from a certain person, that Flimnap and Bolgolam had represent ed my intercourse with those ambassadors as a mark of disaffection, from which I am sure my heart was wholly free. And this was the first time I began to conceive some imperfect idea of courts and ministers. It is to be observed, that these ambassadors spoke to me by an interpreter, the languages of both empires differing_as much from each other as any two in Europe, and each nation priding itself upon the antiquity, beauty, and energy of their own tongues, with an avowed contempt for that of their neighbour; yet our emperor, standing upon the advantage he had got by the seizure of their fleet, obliged them to deliver their credentials, and make their speech in the Lilliputian tongue. And it must be confessed, that from the great intercourse of trade and commerce between both realms, from the continual reception of exiles, which is mutual among them, and from the custom in each empire to send their young nobility and richer gentry to the other in order to polish themselves by seeing the world, and understanding men and manners; there are few persons of distinction, or merchants, or seamen, who dwell in the maritime parts but what can hold conversation in both tongues; as I found some weeks after, when I went to pay my respects to the emperor of Blefuscu, which in the midst of great misfor tunes, through the malice of my enemies, proved a very happy adventure to me, as I shall relate in its proper place. The reader may remember that when I signed those articles upon which I recovered my liberty; there were some which I disliked upon account of their being too servile, neither could any thing but an extreme necessity have forced me to submit. But being now a nardac of the highest rank in that empire, such offices were looked upon as below my dignity, and the cmperor (to do him justice) never once mentioned them to me. However it was not long before I had an opportunity of doing his majesty, at least as I then thought, a most signal service. I was alarmed at midnight with the cries of many hundred people at my door; by which being suddenly awaked, I was in some kind of terror. I heard the word burglum repeated incessantly: several of the emperor's court making their way through the crowd, intreated me to come immediately to the palace, where her imperial majesty's apartment was on fire by the carelessnes of a maid of honour, who fell asleep while she was reading a romance. I got up in an instant; and orders being given to clear the way before me, and it being likewise a moonshine night, I made a shift to get to the palace without trampling on any of the people. I found they had already applied ladders to the walls of the apartment, and were well provided with buckets, but the water was at some distance. These buckets were about the size of a large thimble, and the poor people supplied me with them as fast as they could; but the flame was so violent that they did little good. I might easily have stiffed it with my coat, which I unfortunately left behind me for haste and came away only in my leathern jerkin. The case seemed wholly desperate and deplorable, and this magnificent palace would have infallibly been burnt down to the ground, if by a presence of mind unusual to me, I had not sudden, ly thought of an expedient. I had the evening before drank plentifully of a most delicious wine, called glimigrim (the Blefuscudians call it funec, but ours is esteemed the better sort) which is very diuretic. By the luckiest chance in the world I had not discharged myself of any part of it. The heat I had contracted by coming very near the flames, and by my labouring to quench them, made the wine begin to operate by urine; which I voided in such a quantity, and applied so Bell well to the proper places, that in three minutes the fire was wholly extinguished, and the rest of that noble pile, which had cost so many ages in erecting, preserved from destruction. It was now day-light, and I returned to my house, without waiting to congratulate with the eperor; because, although I had done a very eminent piece of service, yet I could not tell how his majesty might resent the manner by which I had performed it for, by the fundamental laws of the realm, it is capital in any person, of what quality socver, to make water within the precincts of the palace. But I was a little comforted by a message from his majesty, that he would give orders to the grand justiciary for passing my pardon in form; which, however, I could not obtain. And I was privately assured, that the empress, conceiving the greatest abhorrence of what I had done, removed to the mos distant side of the court, firmly resolved that those buildings should never be repaired for her use; and, in the presence of her chief confidants, could not forbear vowing revenge. CHAP. VI. Of the inhabitants of Lilliput; their learning, laws, and customs; the manner of educating their children. The author's way of living in that country. His vindication of a great lady. Although I intend to leave the description of the empire to a particular treatise, yet in the mean time I am content to gratify the curious reader with some general ideas. As the common size of the natives is somewhat under six inches high, so there is an exact proportion in all other animals, as well as plants and trees: for instance, the tallest horses and oxen are between four and five inches in height, the sheep an inch and a half, more or less; their geese about the bigness of a sparrow, and so the several gradations downwards, till you come to the smallest, which to my sight were almost invisible; but nature hath adapted the eyes of the Lilliputians to all objects proper for their view: they see with great exactness, but at no great distance. And, to shew the sharpness of their sight towards objects that are near, I have been much pleased with observing a cook pulling a lark, which was not so large as a common fly; and a young girl threading an invisible needle with invisible silk. Their tallest trees are about se ven fest high: I mean some of those in the great royal park, the tops whereof I could but just reach with my fist clenched. The other vegetables are in the same proportion; but this I leave to the reader's imagination. I shall say but little at present of their learning, which for many ages hath flourished in all its branches among them; but their manner of writing is very peculiar, being neither from the it to the right, like the Europeans; nor tom the right to the left, like the Arabians; nor from up to down, like the Chinese: but aslant from one corner of the paper to the other, like ladies in England. They bury their dead with their beads directly downwards, because they hold an opinion, that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again, in which period the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall at their resurrection be found ready standing on their feet. The learned among them confess the absurdity of this doctrine, but the practice still continues in compliance to the vulgar. There are some laws and customs in this empire very peculiar; and if they were not so directly contrary to those of my own dear country, I should be tempt ed to say a little in their jusufication. It is only to be wished they were as well executed. The first I shall mention relates to informers. All crimes against the state are punished here with the ut most severity; but, if the person accused maketh his innocence plainly to appear upon his trial, the accuser is immediately put to an ignominious death: and out of his goods or lands the innocent per son is quadruply recompensed for the loss of his time, for the danger he under went, for the hardships of his imprison. ment, and for all the charges he hath been at in making his defence. Or, if that fund be deficient, it is largely supplied by the crown. The emperor also confers on him some public mark of his favour, and proclamation is made of his innocence through the whole city. They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to pu nish it with death; for they alledge, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but honesty has no fence against superior cunning; and it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and deal 品 ing upon credit; where fraud is permitted and connived at, or hath no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. I remember when I was once interceding with the king for a criminal, who had wronged his master of a great sum of money, which he had received by order, and ran away with; and happening to tell his majesty, by way of extenuation, that it was only a breach of trust; the emperor thought it monstrous in me to offer as a defence the greatest aggravation of the crime; and truly I had little to say in return, farther than the common answer, that different nations had different customs; for, I confess, I was heartily ashamed*. Although we usually call reward and punishment the two hinges upon which all government turns, yet I could never observe this maxim to be put in practice by any nation, except that of Lilliput. Whoever can there bring sufficient proof that he hath strictly observed the laws of his country for seventy-three moons, hath a claim to certain privileges according to his quality and condition of life, with a proportionable sum of money out of a fund appropriated for that use; he like wise acquires the title of Suil pali, or Legal, which is added to his name, but doth not descend to his posterity. And these people thought it a prodigious defect of policy among us, when I told them, that our laws were enforced only by penalties, without any mention of reward. It is upon this account that the image of justice, in their courts of judicature, is formed with six eyes, two before, as many behind and on each side one, to signify circumspection with a bag of gold open in her right hand, and a sword sheathed in her left, to shew she is more disposed to reward than to punish. In chusing persons for all employments, they have more regard to good morals than to great abilities; for since government is necessary to mankind, they believe that the common size of human understandings is fitted to some station or other, and that Providence never intended to make the management of public affairs to be a mystery, comprehended only by a few persons of sublime genius, of which there seldom are three born in an age: but they suppose truth, justice, temperance, and the like, to *An act of parliament hath been since passed by which some breaches of trust have been made capital. be in every man's power, the practice of which virtues, assisted by experience and a good intention, would qualify any man for the service of his country, except where a course of study is required. But they thought the want of moral virtues was so far from being supplied by superior endowments of the mind, that employments could never be put into such dangerous hands as those of persons so qualified; and at least, that the mistakes committed by ignorance in a virtuous disposition would never be of such fatal consequence to the public weal, as the practices of a man whose inclinations led him to be corrupt, and who had great abilities to manage, to multiply, and defend his corruptions. In like manner, the disbelief of a divine Providence renders a man incapable of holding any public station; for, since kings avowed themselves to be the deputies of Providence, the Lilliputians think nothing can be more absurd than for a prince to employ such men as disown the authority under which he acteth. In relating these and the following laws, I would only be understood to mean the original institutions and not the most scandalous corruptions, into which these people are fallen by the degenerate nature of man. For as to that infamous practice of acquiring great employments by dancing on the ropes, or badges of favour and distinction by leaping over sticks, and creeping under them, the reader is to observe, that they were first introduced by the grandfather of the emperor now reigning, and grew to the present height by the gradual increase of party and faction. Ingratitude is among them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries: for they reason thus, that whoever makes ill returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of mankind, from whom he hath received no obligation, and therefore such a man is not fit to live. Their notions relating to the duties of parents and children differ extremely from ours. For since the conjunction of male and female is founded upon the great law of nature, in order to propagate and continue the species, the Lilliputians will needs have it, that men and women are joined together like other animals by the motives of concupiscence; and that their tenderness towards their young proceeds from the like natural principle; for which reason they will never allow, that a child is under |