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

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  Chapter five, the author, by an extraordinary stratagem prevents an invasion. Our
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  high title of honor is conferred upon him. Ambassadors arrive from the Emperor of
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  Blefuscue and sue for peace. The Empres's apartment on fire by an accident,
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  the Author instrumental and safe in the rest of the palace. The Empire of
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  Blefuscue is an island situated to the northeast of Lilliput, from which it is
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  parted only by a channel of eight hundred yards wide. I had not yet
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  seen it, and upon this notice of an intended invasion, I avoided appearing
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  on that side of the coast, for fear of being discovered by some of
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  the enemy's ships, who had received no intelligence of me. All intercourse between
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  the two empires having been strictly forbidden during the war, upon pain of death,
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  and an embargo laid by our Emperor upon all vessels whatsoever, I communicated
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  to his Majesty a project I had formed of seizing the enemy's the whole fleet,
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  which, as our scouts assured us, lay at anchor in the harbor,
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  ready to sail with the first fair wind. I consulted the most experienced
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  seamen upon the depth of the channel, which they had often plumbed, who
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  told me that in the middle, at high water, it was seventy glumgluffs
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  deep, which is about six feet of European measure, and the rest of
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  it fifty glumgluffs at most. I walked towards the northeast coast, over against
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  Blefuscue, where lying down behind a hillock, I took out my small perspective
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  glass and viewed the enemy's fleet at anchor, consisting of about fifty men of
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  war and a great number of transports. I then came back to my house
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  and gave orders for which I had a warrant, for a great quantity of
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  the strongest cable and bars of iron. The cable was about as thick as
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  pack thread, and the bars of the length and size of a knitting needle.
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  I trebled the cable to make it stronger, and for the same reason
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  I twisted three of the iron bars together, bending the extremities into a hook.
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  Having thus fixed fifty hooks to as many cables, I went back to
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  the northeast coast, and, putting off my coat, shoes and stockings,
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  walked into the sea in my leather jerkin. About half an hour before high
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  water, I waded with what haste I could, and swam in the middle
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  about thirty yards till I felt ground. I arrived at the fleet in less
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  than half an hour. The enemy was so frightened when they saw me that
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  they leaped out of their ships and swam to shore, where there could not
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  be fewer than thirty thousand sols. I then took my tackling, and fastening
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  a hook to the hole at the prow of each I tied all the cords
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  together at the end. While I was thus employed, the enemy discharged several
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  thousand arrows, many of which stuck in my hands and face, and beside
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  the excessive smart gave me much disturbance in my work. My greatest apprehension was
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  for mine eyes, which I should have infallibly lost if I had not sly
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  thought of an expedient. I kept, among my other little necessities a pair
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  of spectacles in a private pocket, which, as I observed before, had
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  escaped the Emperor's searches. These I took out and fastened as strongly as I
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  could upon my nose, and thus armed went on boldly with my work in
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  spite of the enemy's arrows, many of which struck against the glasses of my
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  spectacles, but without any other effect further than a little to decompose them.
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  I had now fastened all the hooks and taken the knot in my hand,
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  began to pull, but not a ship would stir, for they were all
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  too fast held by their anchors, so that the boldest part of my enterprise
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  remained. I therefore let go of the cord, and, leaving the hooks
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  fixed to the ships, I resolutely cut with my knife the cables that fastened
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  the anchors, receiving about two hundred shots in my face and hands. Then
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  I took up the knotted end of the cables to which my hooks were tied,
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  and with great ease drew fifty of the enemy's largest men of war after
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  me. The Blefuscudians, who had not the least imagination of what I intended,
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  were at first confounded with astonishment. They had seen me cut the cables,
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  and thought my design was only to let the ships run adrift or fall
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  foul of each other. But when they perceived the whole fleet moving in order
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  and saw me pulling out the end, they set up such a scream of
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  grief and despair, as it is almost impossible to describe or conceive. When
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  I had got out of danger, I stopped awhile to pick out the arrows
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  that had stuck in my hands and face, and rubbed on some of the
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  same ointment that was given me at my first arrival. As I have formerly
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  mentioned, I then took off my spectacles, and, waiting about an hour
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  till the tide was a little fallen, I waded through the middle with my
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  cargo and arrived safe at the royal port of Lilliput. The Emperor and his
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  whole court stood on the shore, expecting the issue of the great adventure.
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  They saw the ships move forward in a large half moon, but could not
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  discern me, who was up to my breast in water. When I advanced
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  to the middle of the channel, they were yet in more pain because I
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  was under water to my neck. The Emperor concluded me to be drowned,
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  and that the enemy's fleet was approaching in a hostile manner. But he was
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  soon eased of his fears, for the channel growing shallow at every step I
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  made. I came in a short time within hearing and holding up the end
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  of the cable by which the fleet was fastened, I cried out in a
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  loud voice, long live the most poissant King of Lilliput. This great prince
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  received me at my landing with all possible encomiums, and created me a nardic
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  upon the spot, which is the highest title of honor among them. His
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  Majesty desired I would take some other opportunity of bringing all the rest of his
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  enemy ships into his ports. And so unmeasurable as the ambition of princes,
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  that he seemed to think of nothing less than reducing the whole empire of Blefiscue
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  into a province and governing it by a viceroy, of destroying the big Indian
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  exiles, and compelling that people to break the smaller end of their eggs,
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  by which he would remain the sole monarch of the whole world. But I
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  endeavored to divert him from the design by many arguments drawn from the topics of
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  policy as well as justice. And I plainly protested that I would never be
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  an instrument of bringing a free and brave people into slavery. And when the
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  matter was debated in council, the wisest part of the ministry were of my
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  opinion. This open, bold declaration of mine was so opposite to the schemes
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  and politics of his Imperial Majesty that he could never forgive me. He mentioned
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  it in a very artful manner at council, where I was told that some
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  of the wisest appeared, at least by their silence, to be of my
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  opinion, but others, who were my secret enemies, could not forbear some
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  expressions which by a side wind reflected on me, And from this time began
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  in an intrigue between His Majesty and a juntaou of ministers maliciously bent against me,
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  which broke out in less than two months, and had liked to have
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  ended in my utter destruction of so little way to the greatest services to princes,
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  when put into the balance with a refusal to gratify their passions. About
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  three weeks after this exploit, there arrived a solemn embassy from Blefriscue with humble
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  offers of peace, which was soon concluded upon conditions very advantageous to our Emperor,
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  wherewith I shall not trouble the reader. There were six ambassadors with a
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  train of about five hundred persons, and their entry was very magnificent, suitable
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  to the grandeur of their master and the importance of their business. When their
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  treaty was finished, wherein I did them several good offices by the credit I
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  now had, or at least appeared to have at court. Their excellencies,
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  who were privately told how much I had been their friend, made me a
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  visit in form They began, with many common implements upon my valor and generosity,
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  invited me to that kingdom in the Emperor their Master's name, and desired
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  me to show them some proofs of my prodigious strength, of which they had
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  heard so many wonders. Wherein I readily obliged them, but shall not trouble
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  the reader with the particulars. When I had for some time entertained their excellencies
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  to their infinite satisfaction and surprise, I desired they would do me the honor
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  to present my most humble respects to the Emperor their Master, the renown of
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  whose virtues had so justly filled the whole world with admiration, and whose royal
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  person I resolved to attend before I returned to my own country. Accordingly,
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  the next time I had the honor to see our Emperor, I desired his
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  general license to wait on the Bluffiescudian monarch, which he was pleased to grant
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  me, as I could perceive in a very cold manner, but could not
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  guess the reason till I had a whisper from a certain person that fil Napp
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  and Bogolam had represented my intercourse with those of the membassadors as a mark of
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  disaffection, from which I am sure my heart was wholly free. And this
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  was the first time I began to conceive some imperfect idea of courts and ministers.
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  It is to be observed that these ambassadors spoke to me by an interpreter,
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  the languages of both empires differing as much from each other as any two
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  in Europe, and each nation priding itself upon the antiquity, beauty, and
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  energy of their own tongue, with an avowed contempt for that of their neighbor.
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  Yet our Emperor, standing upon the advantage she had gotten by the seizure
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  of their fleet, obliged them to deliver their credentials and make their speech in
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  their Lilepusian tongue. And it must be confessed that from the great intercourse of
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  trade and commerce between both realms, from the continual reception of exiles, which
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  is mutual among them, and from the custom in each empire to send their
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  young nobility and richer gentry to the other in order to polish themselves by seeing
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  the world and understand it men and manners. There are few persons of distinction,
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  or merchants or seamen who dwell in the maritime parts. But what can
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  hold conversation in both tongues? As I found some weeks after when I went
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  to pay my respects to the Emperor of Blefuscuie, which, in the midst
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  of great misfortunes, through the malice of my enemies, proved a very happy
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  adventure to me. As I shall relate in its proper place, the reader
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  may remember that when I signed these articles upon which I recovered my liberty,
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  there were some which I had disliked upon account of their being too servile.
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  Neither could anything but an extreme necessity have forced me to submit. But being
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  now a nardek of the highest rank in that empire, such offices were looked
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  upon as below my dignity, and the Emperor, to do him justice,
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  never once mentioned them to me. However, it was not long before I
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  had opportunity of doing his Majesty at least, as I then thought, a
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  most signal service. I was armed at midnight with the cries of many hundred
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  people at my door, by which, being suddenly awaked, I was in
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  some kind of terror. I heard the word burglm repeated incessantly. Several of
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  the Emperor's court, making their way through the crowd, entreated me to come
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  immediately to the palace, where Her Imperial Majesty's apartment was on fire by the
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  carelessness of a maid of honor who fell asleep while she was reading a romance.
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  I got up in an instant, and orders being given to clear the
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  way before me, and it being likewise a moonshine night, I made a
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  shift to get to the palace without trampling on any of the people. I
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  found. They had already applied ladders to the walls of the apartment, and
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  were well provided with buckets, but the water was at some distance. These
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  buckets were about the size of large thymbols, and the poor people supplied me
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  with them as fast as they could, but the flames was so violent that
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  they did little good. I might easily have stifled it with my coat,
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  which I had unfortunately left behind me for haste, and came way only in
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  my leather jerkin. The case seemed wholly desperate and deplorable, and this magnificent
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  palace would have been infallibly burnt down to the ground, if, by a
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  presence of mind unusual to me, I had not suddenly thought of an expedient.
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  I had the evening before drunk plentifully of a most delicious wine called glimmigrim.
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  The bless Fustians call it flunck, but ours is esteemed the better sort,
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  which is very diuretic. By the luckiest chance in the world, I
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  had not discharged myself of any part of it, which I avoided in such
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  a quantity, and applied so well to the proper places, that in three
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  minutes the fire was wholly extinguished, and the rest of that noble pile,
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  which had cost so many ages in erecting, preserved from destruction. It was
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  now daylight, and I returned to my house without waiting to congratulate with the
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  Emperor, because although I had done a very eminent piece of service, yet
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  I could not tell how his Majesty might resent the manner by which I had
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  performed it. For by the fundamental laws of the realm, it is capital
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  in any person, of what quality soever to make water within the precincts of
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  the Palace. But I was a little comforted by a message from His Majesty
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  that he would give orders to the Grand Justicary for passing my pardon, in
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  form which, however, I could not obtain. And I was privately assured
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  that the Empress, conceiving the greatest abhorrence of what I had done, removed
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  to the most distant side of the court, firmly resolved that those buildings should
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  never be repaired for her use, and in the presence of her chief confidence
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  could not forbear vowing revenge. End of Chapter five, Part one