Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World
years old, the rest are kept to eleven.
The meaner families who have children at these nurseries, are obliged,
besides their annual pension, which is as low as possible, to return to
the steward of the nursery a small monthly share of their gettings, to
be a portion for the child; and therefore all parents are limited in
their expenses by the law. For the Lilliputians think nothing can be
more unjust, than for people, in subservience to their own appetites,
to bring children into the world, and leave the burthen of supporting
them on the public. As to persons of quality, they give security to
appropriate a certain sum for each child, suitable to their condition;
and these funds are always managed with good husbandry and the most
exact justice.
The cottagers and labourers keep their children at home, their business
being only to till and cultivate the earth, and therefore their
education is of little consequence to the public: but the old and
diseased among them are supported by hospitals; for begging is a trade
unknown in this empire.
And here it may, perhaps, divert the curious reader, to give some
account of my domestics, and my manner of living in this country,
during a residence of nine months, and thirteen days. Having a head
mechanically turned, and being likewise forced by necessity, I had made
for myself a table and chair convenient enough, out of the largest
trees in the royal park. Two hundred sempstresses were employed to make
me shirts, and linen for my bed and table, all of the strongest and
coarsest kind they could get; which, however, they were forced to quilt
together in several folds, for the thickest was some degrees finer than
lawn. Their linen is usually three inches wide, and three feet make a
piece. The sempstresses took my measure as I lay on the ground, one
standing at my neck, and another at my mid-leg, with a strong cord
extended, that each held by the end, while a third measured the length
of the cord with a rule of an inch long. Then they measured my right
thumb, and desired no more; for by a mathematical computation, that
twice round the thumb is once round the wrist, and so on to the neck
and the waist, and by the help of my old shirt, which I displayed on
the ground before them for a pattern, they fitted me exactly. Three
hundred tailors were employed in the same manner to make me clothes;
but they had another contrivance for taking my measure. I kneeled down,
and they raised a ladder from the ground to my neck; upon this ladder
one of them mounted, and let fall a plumb-line from my collar to the
floor, which just answered the length of my coat: but my waist and arms
I measured myself. When my clothes were finished, which was done in my
house (for the largest of theirs would not have been able to hold
them), they looked like the patch-work made by the ladies in England,
only that mine were all of a colour.
I had three hundred cooks to dress my victuals, in little convenient
huts built about my house, where they and their families lived, and
prepared me two dishes a-piece. I took up twenty waiters in my hand,
and placed them on the table: a hundred more attended below on the
ground, some with dishes of meat, and some with barrels of wine and
other liquors slung on their shoulders; all which the waiters above
drew up, as I wanted, in a very ingenious manner, by certain cords, as
we draw the bucket up a well in Europe. A dish of their meat was a good
mouthful, and a barrel of their liquor a reasonable draught. Their
mutton yields to ours, but their beef is excellent. I have had a
sirloin so large, that I have been forced to make three bites of it;
but this is rare. My servants were astonished to see me eat it, bones
and all, as in our country we do the leg of a lark. Their geese and
turkeys I usually ate at a mouthful, and I confess they far exceed
ours. Of their smaller fowl I could take up twenty or thirty at the end
of my knife.
One day his imperial majesty, being informed of my way of living,
desired “that himself and his royal consort, with the young princes of
the blood of both sexes, might have the happiness,” as he was pleased
to call it, “of dining with me.” They came accordingly, and I placed
them in chairs of state, upon my table, just over against me, with
their guards about them. Flimnap, the lord high treasurer, attended
there likewise with his white staff; and I observed he often looked on
me with a sour countenance, which I would not seem to regard, but ate
more than usual, in honour to my dear country, as well as to fill the
court with admiration. I have some private reasons to believe, that
this visit from his majesty gave Flimnap an opportunity of doing me ill
offices to his master. That minister had always been my secret enemy,
though he outwardly caressed me more than was usual to the moroseness
of his nature. He represented to the emperor “the low condition of his
treasury; that he was forced to take up money at a great discount; that
exchequer bills would not circulate under nine per cent. below par;
that I had cost his majesty above a million and a half of _sprugs_”
(their greatest gold coin, about the bigness of a spangle) “and, upon
the whole, that it would be advisable in the emperor to take the first
fair occasion of dismissing me.”
I am here obliged to vindicate the reputation of an excellent lady, who
was an innocent sufferer upon my account. The treasurer took a fancy to
be jealous of his wife, from the malice of some evil tongues, who
informed him that her grace had taken a violent affection for my
person; and the court scandal ran for some time, that she once came
privately to my lodging. This I solemnly declare to be a most infamous
falsehood, without any grounds, further than that her grace was pleased
to treat me with all innocent marks of freedom and friendship. I own
she came often to my house, but always publicly, nor ever without three
more in the coach, who were usually her sister and young daughter, and
some particular acquaintance; but this was common to many other ladies
of the court. And I still appeal to my servants round, whether they at
any time saw a coach at my door, without knowing what persons were in
it. On those occasions, when a servant had given me notice, my custom
was to go immediately to the door, and, after paying my respects, to
take up the coach and two horses very carefully in my hands (for, if
there were six horses, the postillion always unharnessed four,) and
place them on a table, where I had fixed a movable rim quite round, of
five inches high, to prevent accidents. And I have often had four
coaches and horses at once on my table, full of company, while I sat in
my chair, leaning my face towards them; and when I was engaged with one
set, the coachmen would gently drive the others round my table. I have
passed many an afternoon very agreeably in these conversations. But I
defy the treasurer, or his two informers (I will name them, and let
them make the best of it) Clustril and Drunlo, to prove that any person
ever came to me _incognito_, except the secretary Reldresal, who was
sent by express command of his imperial majesty, as I have before
related. I should not have dwelt so long upon this particular, if it
had not been a point wherein the reputation of a great lady is so
nearly concerned, to say nothing of my own; though I then had the
honour to be a _nardac_, which the treasurer himself is not; for all
the world knows, that he is only a _glumglum_, a title inferior by one
degree, as that of a marquis is to a duke in England; yet I allow he
preceded me in right of his post. These false informations, which I
afterwards came to the knowledge of by an accident not proper to
mention, made the treasurer show his lady for some time an ill
countenance, and me a worse; and although he was at last undeceived and
reconciled to her, yet I lost all credit with him, and found my
interest decline very fast with the emperor himself, who was, indeed,
too much governed by that favourite.
CHAPTER VII.
The author, being informed of a design to accuse him of high-treason,
makes his escape to Blefuscu. His reception there.
Before I proceed to give an account of my leaving this kingdom, it may
be proper to inform the reader of a private intrigue which had been for
two months forming against me.
I had been hitherto, all my life, a stranger to courts, for which I was
unqualified by the meanness of my condition. I had indeed heard and
read enough of the dispositions of great princes and ministers, but
never expected to have found such terrible effects of them, in so
remote a country, governed, as I thought, by very different maxims from
those in Europe.
When I was just preparing to pay my attendance on the emperor of
Blefuscu, a considerable person at court (to whom I had been very
serviceable, at a time when he lay under the highest displeasure of his
imperial majesty) came to my house very privately at night, in a close
chair, and, without sending his name, desired admittance. The chairmen
were dismissed; I put the chair, with his lordship in it, into my
coat-pocket: and, giving orders to a trusty servant, to say I was
indisposed and gone to sleep, I fastened the door of my house, placed
the chair on the table, according to my usual custom, and sat down by
it. After the common salutations were over, observing his lordship’s
countenance full of concern, and inquiring into the reason, he desired
“I would hear him with patience, in a matter that highly concerned my
honour and my life.” His speech was to the following effect, for I took
notes of it as soon as he left me:—
“You are to know,” said he, “that several committees of council have
been lately called, in the most private manner, on your account; and it
is but two days since his majesty came to a full resolution.
“You are very sensible that Skyresh Bolgolam” (_galbet_, or
high-admiral) “has been your mortal enemy, almost ever since your
arrival. His original reasons I know not; but his hatred is increased
since your great success against Blefuscu, by which his glory as
admiral is much obscured. This lord, in conjunction with Flimnap the
high-treasurer, whose enmity against you is notorious on account of his
lady, Limtoc the general, Lalcon the chamberlain, and Balmuff the grand
justiciary, have prepared articles of impeachment against you, for
treason and other capital crimes.”
This preface made me so impatient, being conscious of my own merits and
innocence, that I was going to interrupt him; when he entreated me to
be silent, and thus proceeded:—
“Out of gratitude for the favours you have done me, I procured
information of the whole proceedings, and a copy of the articles;
wherein I venture my head for your service.
“‘_Articles of Impeachment against_ QUINBUS FLESTRIN, (_the
Man-Mountain_.)
Article I.
“‘Whereas, by a statute made in the reign of his imperial majesty Calin
Deffar Plune, it is enacted, that, whoever shall make water within the
precincts of the royal palace, shall be liable to the pains and
penalties of high-treason; notwithstanding, the said Quinbus Flestrin,
in open breach of the said law, under colour of extinguishing the fire
kindled in the apartment of his majesty’s most dear imperial consort,
did maliciously, traitorously, and devilishly, by discharge of his
urine, put out the said fire kindled in the said apartment, lying and
being within the precincts of the said royal palace, against the
statute in that case provided, etc. against the duty, etc.
Article II.
“‘That the said Quinbus Flestrin, having brought the imperial fleet of
Blefuscu into the royal port, and being afterwards commanded by his
imperial majesty to seize all the other ships of the said empire of