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07 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift · Adventure Books Collection

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  Chapter seven, The author, being informed of a design to accuse him of
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  high treason, makes us escape to Blefuscue his reception there. Before I proceed
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  to give an account of my leaving this kingdom, it may be proper to
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  inform the reader of a private intrigue which had been for two months forming against
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  me. I had been hitherto all my life a stranger to courts for which
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  I was unqualified by the meanness of my condition. I had indeed heard and
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  read enough of the dispositions of great princes and ministers, but never expected to
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  have found such terrible effects of them in some remoter country, governed, as
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  I thought, by very different maxims from those in Europe. When I was
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  just preparing to pay my attendance on the Emperor of Blefuscue, a considerable person
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  at court to whom I had been very serviceable at a time when he lay
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  under the highest displeasure of his Imperial majesty, came to my house very privately
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  at night, in a close chair, and without sending his name desired admittance.
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  The chairman was dismissed. I put the chair, with his lordship in
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  it into my coat pocket, and giving orders to a trusty servant to say
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  I was indisposed and gone to sleep. I fastened the door of my house,
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  placed the chair on the table according to my usual custom, and sat
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  down by it after the common salutations were over, observing his Lordship's countenance full
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  of concern, and inquiring into the reason he desired, I would hear him
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  with all patience, in a manner that highly concerned my honor and my life.
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  His speech was to the following effect, for I took notes of it
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  as soon as he left me. You ought to know, said he,
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  that several committees of Council had been lately called in the most private manner on
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  your account. And it is but two days since his Majesty came to a
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  full resolution. You are very sensible that Skyrish bogolonm Galbert, or High Admiral,
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  has been your mortal enemy almost ever since your arrival. His original reasons
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  I know not, but his hatred has increased since your great success against Blefiscue,
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  by which his glorious Admiral is much obscured. This lord, in conjunction
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  with filling up the High Treasurer, whose enmity against you is notorious. An
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  account of his Lady Limb Tuck, the General luck On, the Chamberlain,
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  and baum Off, the Grand Justicsary have prepared articles of impeachment against you for
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  treason and other capital crimes. This preface made me so impatient, being conscious
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  of my own merits and innocent, that I was going to interrupt him when
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  he entreated me to be silent, and thus proceeded. Out of the gratitude
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  for the favors you have done me, I procured information of the whole proceedings
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  and a copy of the articles, wherein I venture my head for your service.
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  Articles of impeachment against quynbillis flesterin the Man Mountain, Article one, Whereas
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  by a statute made in the reign of His Imperial Majesty Calin de far Plun,
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  it is enacted that whoever shall make water within the precincts of the Royal
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  Palace shall be liable to the pains and penalties of high treason. Notwithstanding the
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  said quinbus flesterin in open breach of the said law, under colour of extinguishing
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  the fire kindled in the apartment of His Majesty's most dear Imperial Consort, did
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  maliciously treacherously and devilishly by discharge of his urine, put out the said fire
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  kindled in the said apartment, lying and being within the precincts of the said
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  Royal Palace, against the statute in that case provided, etc. Against the
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  duty, et cetera. Article two, That the said quinbus Flestrin, having
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  brought the Imperial fleet of Blefuscue into the Royal port, and being afterwards commanded
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  by his Imperial Majesty, to seize all the other ships of the said Empire
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  of Blefuscue, and reduce that empire to a province, to be governors by
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  a viceroy from hence, and to destroy and put to death not only all
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  the big Indian exiles, but likewise all the people of that Empire who would
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  not immediately forsake the big Endian heresy. He, the said Flestrian, like
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  a false traitor, against his most auspicious, serene Imperial Majesty, did petition
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  to be excused from the said service, upon pretense of the unwillingness to force
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  the consciences or destroy the liberties and lives of an innocent people. Article three,
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  That, whereas certain ambassadors arrived from the Court of Blefuscue to sue for
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  peace in his Majesty's court. He, the said flesterin, did, like
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  a false traitor, aid abet comfort and divert the said ambassadors, although he
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  knew them to be servants to a prince who was lately an open enemy to
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  his Imperial Majesty, and in an open war against his said Imperial Majesty.
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  Article four, that the said quinbus flesterin, contrary to the the duty of
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  a faithful subject, is now preparing to make a voyage to the court and
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  Empire of Blefuscue, for which he has received only verbal license from his Imperial
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  Majesty, and under color of the said license, does falsely and treacherously intend
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  to take the said voyage, and thereby to aid comfort and abet the Emperor
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  of Blefuscue, so lately an enemy and an open war with his Imperial Majesty.
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  As foresaid, there are some other articles, but these are the most
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  important, of which I have read you an abstract. In the several debates
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  upon this impeachment, it must be confessed that his Majesty gave many marks of
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  his great lenienty, often urge in the services you had done him. And
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  endeavoring to extenuate your crimes. The Treasurer and Admiral insisted that you should be
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  put to the most painful and ignominious death by setting fire to your house at
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  night, and the General was to attend with twenty thousand men armed with poisoned
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  arrows to shoot you on the face and hands. Some of it. Your
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  servants were to have private orders to strew a poisonous juice on your shirts and
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  sheets, which would soon make you tear your own flesh and die in the
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  utmost torture. The General came into the same opinion, so that for a
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  long time there was a majority against you, But his Majesty, resolving if
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  possible, to spare your life, at last brought off the Chamberlain. Upon
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  this incident, Real Dressel, Principal Secretary for Private Affairs, who always approved
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  himself your true friend, was commanded by the Emperor to deliver his opinion,
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  which he accordingly did, and therein justified the good thoughts you have of him.
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  He allowed your crimes to be great, but that still there was room
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  for mercy, the most commendable virtue in a prince, and for which his
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  Majesty was so justly celebrated. He said, the friendship between you and him
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  was so well known to the world, that perhaps the most honorable board might
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  think him partial. However, in obedience to the command he received, he
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  would freely offer his sentiments that if his Majesty, in consideration of your services,
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  and pursuant to his own merciful disposition, would please to spare your life
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  and only give orders to put out both your eyes, He humbly conceived that
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  this expedient, just as might in some measure, be satisfied, and all
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  the world would applaud the lenienty of the Emperor, as well as the fair
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  and generous proceedings of those who have the honor to be his counselors. That
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  the loss of your eyes would be no impediment to your bodily strength, by
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  which you might still be useful to his Majesty, that blindness, in addition
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  to courage, by concealing dangers from us, That the fear you had for
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  your eyes was the greatest difficulty in bringing over the enemy's fleet, and it
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  would be sufficient for you to see by the eyes of the ministers, since
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  the great princes do no more. This proposal was received with the utmost disprobation
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  by the whole board Bogolon, the Admiral could not preserve his temp but,
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  rising up in fury, said, he wondered how the Secretary does presume to
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  give his opinion for preserving the life of a traitor. That the services you
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  had performed were by all true reasons of state the great aggravation of your crimes.
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  That you, who were able to extinguish the fire by discharge of urine
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  in Her Majesty's department, which he mentioned with horror, might at another time
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  raise in anundation by the same means to drown the whole palace. And the
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  same strength which enabled you to bring over the enemy's fleet might serve, upon
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  the first discontent, to carry it back. That he had good reasons to
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  think you were a big Indian in your heart, And as treason begins in
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  the heart before it appears in overt acts, so he accused you as a
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  traitor on that account, and therefore insisted you should be put to death.
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  The treasurers of the same opinion, he showed to what straits his Majesty's revenue
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  was reduced. But the charge of maintaining you, which would soon grow insupportable.
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  That the Secretary's expedient of putting out your eyes was so far from being
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  a remedy against this evil that it would probably increase it, as is manifest
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  from the common practice of blinding some kind of fowls, after which they feed
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  the faster and grow sooner fat. That His Sacred Majesty and the Council,
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  who are your judges, were in their own consciences fully conceived of your guilt,
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  which was a sufficient argument to condemn you to death without the formal proofs
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  required by the strict letter of the law. But his Imperial Majesty, fully
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  determined against capital punishment, was graciously pleased to say that, since the Council
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  thought the loss of your eyes too easy, a censure some other way might
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  be inflicted hereafter. And your friend the Secretary, humbly, desiring to be
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  heard again in answer to what the Treasurer had objected concerning the Great Charge's Majesty,
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  he was at in maintaining you, said that his Excellency, who had
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  the sole disposal of the Emperor's revenue, might easily provide against the evil by
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  gradually lessening your establishment, by which for want of sufficient, for you would
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  grow weak and faint, and lose your appetite, and consequently decay and consume
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  in a few months. Neither would the stent of your carcass be then so
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  dangerous, when it should become more than half diminished, And immediately upon your
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  death, five or six thousand of His Majesty's subjects might in two or three
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  days cut your flesh from your bones, and take it away by cart loads,
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  and bury it in distant parts to prevent infection, leaving the skeleton as
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  a monument of admiration to prosperity. Thus, by the great friendship of the
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  Secretary, the whole affair was compromised. It was strictly enjoined that the project
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  of starving you by degrees should be kept a secret, but the sentence of
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  putting out your eyes was entered on the book books. None dissenting except Bogolon,
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  the Admiral, who, being a creature of the Empress, was perpetually
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  instigated by Her Majesty to insist upon your death, she having borne perpetual malice
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  against you, on account of that infamous and a legal method you took to
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  extinguish the fire in her apartment in three days, your friend, the Secretary
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  will be directed to come to your house and read before you the articles of
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  impeachment, and then to signify the great lenienty in favor of His Majesty and
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  council. Whereby you are only condemned to the loss of your eyes, which
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  his Majesty does not question, you will gratefully and humbly submit to. And
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  twenty of his Majesty's surgeons will attend in order to see the operation well performed.
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  By discharging very sharp pointed arrows into the balls of your eyes as you
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  lie on the ground, I leave you to your prudence what measures you would
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  take, and to avoid suspicion, I must immediately return in as private a
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  manner as I came. His lordship did so, and I remained alone under
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  many doubts and perplexities of mind. It was a custom introduced by this Prince
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  and his ministry very different, as I have been assured from the practice of
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  former times, that after the court has decreed any cruel execution, either to
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  gratify the monarch's resentment or the malice of a favorite, the Emperor always makes
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  a speech to his whole council, expressed in his great lenienty and tenderness,
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  as qualities known and confessed by all the world. This speech was immediately published
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  throughout the kingdom. Nor did anything terrify the people so much as these encomiums
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  on His Majesty's mercy, because it was observed that the more these praises were
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  enlarged and insisted on, the more inhuman was the punishment, and the sufferer
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  more innocent. Yet as to myself, I must confess, having never been
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  designed for a courtier, either by my birth or education, I was so
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  ill a judge of things that I could not discover the lenientity and favor of
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  this sentence, but conceived it, perhaps erroneously, rather to be rigorous than
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  gentle. I sometimes thought of standing my trial, for although I could not
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  deny the facts alleged in several articles, yet I hoped they would admit of
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  some extenuation. But having in my life pursued many state trials, which I
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  ever observed to terminate as the judges thought fit to direct, I durst not
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  rely on so dangerous a decision, in so critical a juncture, and against
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  such powerful enemies. Once I was strongly bent upon resistance, For while I
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  had liberty. The whole strength of that empire could hardly subdue me, and
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  I might easily with stones pel the metropolis to pieces. But I soon rejected
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  that project with horror, by remembering the oath I had made to the Emperor,
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  the favors I had received from him, and the high title of Nardieu
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  he had conferred upon me. Neither had I so soon learned the gratitude of
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  courtiers to persuade myself that His Majesty's prayers and seventies acquitted me of all past
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  obligations. At last I fixed upon a resolution for which it is probable I
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  may incur some censure, and not unjustly, for I confess I owe the
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  preserving of mine eyes, and consequently my liberty, to my own great rashness
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  and want of experience. Because if I had then known the nature of princes
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  and ministers, which I have since observed in many other courts, and their
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  methods of treating criminals less obnoxious than myself, I should, with great alacrity
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  and readiness have submitted to so easy a punishment, But hurried on by the
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  precipitancy of youth, and having his imperial Majesty's license to pay my attendance upon
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  the Emperor of Blefuscuie. I took this opportunity before the three days were elapsed,
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  to send a letter to my friend the Secretary, signifying my resolution of
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  setting out that morning for Blefuscue. Pursuant to the leave I had got,
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  and without waiting for an answer, I went to that side of the island
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  where our fleet lay. I seized a large man of war, tied a
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  cable to the prow, and lifting up the anchors, I stripped myself,
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  put my clothes together with my coverlet, which I carried under my arm into
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  the vessel, and drawing it after me. Between wading and swimming, arrived
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  at the royal port of Lethuskue, where the people had long expected me.
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  They lent me two guides to direct me to the capital city, which is
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  of the same name. I held them in my hands till I came within
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  two hundred yards of the gate, and desired them to signify my arrival to
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  one of the secretaries and let him know I there waited His Majesty's command.
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  I had an answer in about an hour that His Majesty attended by the royal
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  family and great officers of the court was coming out to receive me. I
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  advanced a hundred yards. The Emperor and his train alighted from their horses,
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  the Empress and ladies from their coaches, and I did not perceive there in
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  any fright or concern. I lay on the ground to kiss His Majesty's and
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  the Empress's hands. I told his Majesty that I was come according to my
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  promise and with the license of the Emperor, my master, to have the
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  honor of seeing so mighty a monarch, and to offer him any service in
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  my power, consistent with my duty to my own prince, not mentioning a
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  word in my disgrace. Because I had hitherown no regular information about it,
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  I might suppose myself wholly ignorant of any such design. Neither could I reasonably
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  conceive that the Emperor would discover the secret while I was out of his power,
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  wherein, however, it soon appeared I was deceived. I shall not
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  trouble the reader with the particular account of my reception at this court, which
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  was suitable to the generosity of so great a prince, nor of the difficulties
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  I was in for want of a house and bed being forced to lie on
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  the ground, wrapped in my coverlet end of Chapter seven, Part one,