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22 - Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift · Classic Adventure Books - Daily

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  Speaker 1: Chapter six, a further account of the academy, the author
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  Speaker 1: proposes some improvements which are honorably received. In the school
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  Speaker 1: of political projectors. I was but ill entertained the professors appearing,
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  Speaker 1: in my judgment, wholly out of their senses, which is
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  Speaker 1: a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These
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  Speaker 1: unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose
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  Speaker 1: favorites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity and virtue,
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  Speaker 1: of teaching ministers to consult the public good, of rewarding
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  Speaker 1: merit great abilities eminent services, of instructing princes to know
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  Speaker 1: their true interest by placing it on the same foundation
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  Speaker 1: with that of their people, of choosing for employments persons
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  Speaker 1: qualified to exercise them, with many other wild, impossible chimeras
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  Speaker 1: that never entered before into the heart of men to
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  Speaker 1: conceive and confirmed in me the old observation that there
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  Speaker 1: is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have
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  Speaker 1: not maintained for truth. But however, I shall so far
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  Speaker 1: do justice to this part of the academy as to
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  Speaker 1: acknowledge that all of them were not so visionary. There
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  Speaker 1: was a most ingenious doctor who seemed to be perfectly
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  Speaker 1: versed in the whole nature and system of government. This
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  Speaker 1: illustrious person had very usefully employed his studies in finding
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  Speaker 1: out effectual remedies for all diseases and corruptions to which
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  Speaker 1: the several kinds of public administration are subject by the
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  Speaker 1: vices or infirmities of those who govern, as well as
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  Speaker 1: by the licentiousness of those who are to obey. For instance,
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  Speaker 1: whereas all writers and reasoners have agreed that there is
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  Speaker 1: a strict universal resemblance between the natural and the political body,
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  Speaker 1: can there be anything more evident than that the health
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  Speaker 1: of both must be preserved and the diseases cured by
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  Speaker 1: the same prescriptions. It is allowed that senates and great
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  Speaker 1: councils are often troubled with redundant, ibuliant and other becant humours,
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  Speaker 1: with many diseases of the head and more of the heart,
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  Speaker 1: with strong convulsions, with grievous contractions of the nerves and
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  Speaker 1: sinews in both hands, but especially the rite, with spleen flatus,
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  Speaker 1: vertigoes and deliriums, with scrofulous tumors full of fetid, purulent matter,
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  Speaker 1: with sour, frothy ricutations, with canine appetites and crudeness of digestion,
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  Speaker 1: besides many others needless to mention. This doctor therefore proposed
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  Speaker 1: that upon the meeting of the Senate, certain physicians should
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  Speaker 1: attend it to the three first days of their sitting,
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  Speaker 1: and at the close of each day's debate feel the
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  Speaker 1: pulses of every senator, after which, having maturely considered and
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  Speaker 1: consulted upon the nature of the several maladies and the
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  Speaker 1: methods of cure, they should, on the fourth day return
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  Speaker 1: to the Senate House, attended by their apothecaries, stored with
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  Speaker 1: proper medicines, and before the members sat, administer to each
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  Speaker 1: of them lenatives, apperatives, abstursives, corrosives, restringants, palliatives, laxatives, cephalagics, icterics, apophlegmatics, acoustics,
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  Speaker 1: as their several cases required, and according as these medicines
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  Speaker 1: should operate, repeat, alter, or omit them at the next meeting.
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  Speaker 1: This project cannot be of any great expense to the public,
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  Speaker 1: and might, in my poor opinion, be of much use
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  Speaker 1: for the dispatch of business in those countries where Senates
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  Speaker 1: have any share in the legislative power. Beget unanimity, shortened debates,
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  Speaker 1: open a few mouths which are now closed, and close
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  Speaker 1: many more which are now open. The petulance of the young,
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  Speaker 1: and correct the positiveness of the old, rouse the stupid,
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  Speaker 1: and damp the pert. Again, because it is a general
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  Speaker 1: complaint that the favorites of princes are troubled with short
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  Speaker 1: and weak memories, the same doctor proposed that whoever attended
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  Speaker 1: a first minister, after having told his business with the
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  Speaker 1: utmost brevity and in the plainest words, should at his
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  Speaker 1: departure give the said minister a tweak by the nose,
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  Speaker 1: or a kick in the belly, or tread on his corns,
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  Speaker 1: or like him thrice by both ears, or run a
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  Speaker 1: pin into his breech, or pinch his arms black and
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  Speaker 1: blue to prevent forgetfulness, and at every levee day repeat
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  Speaker 1: the same operation till the business were done or absolutely refused.
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  Speaker 1: He likewise directed that every senator in the Great Council
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  Speaker 1: of a nation, after he had delivered his appear union
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  Speaker 1: and argued in the defense of it, should be obliged
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  Speaker 1: to give his vote direct contrary, because if that were done,
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  Speaker 1: the result would infallibly terminate in the good of the public.
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  Speaker 1: When parties in a state are violent, he offered a
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  Speaker 1: wonderful contrivance to reconcile them. The method is this. You
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  Speaker 1: take a hundred leaders of each party. You dispose them
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  Speaker 1: into couples, of such whose heads are nearest of a size.
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  Speaker 1: Then let two nice operators saw off the occupant of
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  Speaker 1: each couple at the same time, in such a manner
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  Speaker 1: that the brain may be equally divided. Let the occupants
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  Speaker 1: thus cut off be interchanged, applying each to the head
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  Speaker 1: of his opposite party member. It seems, indeed be a
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  Speaker 1: work that requires some exactness, But the professor assured us
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  Speaker 1: that if it were dexterously performed, the cure would be infallible.
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  Speaker 1: For he argued thus that the two brains, being left
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  Speaker 1: to debate the matter between themselves within the space of
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  Speaker 1: one's skull, would soon come to a good understanding and
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  Speaker 1: produce that moderation, as well as regularity of thinking, so
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  Speaker 1: much to be wished for in the heads of those
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  Speaker 1: who imagine they come into the world only to watch
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  Speaker 1: and govern its motion. And as to the difference of
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  Speaker 1: brains in quantity or quality among those who are directors
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  Speaker 1: in faction, the doctor assured us from his own knowledge
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  Speaker 1: that it was a perfect trifle. I heard a very
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  Speaker 1: warm debate between two professors about the most commodious and
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  Speaker 1: effectual ways and means of raising money without grieving the subject.
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  Speaker 1: The first affirmed the justice method would be to lay
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  Speaker 1: a certain tax upon vices and follies, and the sum
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  Speaker 1: fixed upon every man, to be rated after the fairest
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  Speaker 1: manner by a jury of his neighbors. The second was
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  Speaker 1: of an opinion directly contrary to tax those qualities of
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  Speaker 1: body and mind for which men chiefly value themselves, the
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  Speaker 1: rate to be more or less according to the degrees
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  Speaker 1: of excelling. The decision whereof should be left entirely to
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  Speaker 1: their own breast. The highest tax was upon men who
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  Speaker 1: are the great favorites of the other sex, and the
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  Speaker 1: assessments according to the number and nature of the favors
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  Speaker 1: they have received, for which they are allowed to be
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  Speaker 1: their own vouchers. Wit, valor, and politeness were likewise proposed
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  Speaker 1: to be largely taxed and collected in the same manner,
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  Speaker 1: by every person's giving his own word for the quantum
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  Speaker 1: of what he possessed. But as to honour, justice, wisdom,
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  Speaker 1: and learning, they should not be taxed at all, because
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  Speaker 1: they are qualifications of so singular a kind that no
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  Speaker 1: man will either allow them in his neighbour or value
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  Speaker 1: them in himself. The women were proposed to be taxed
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  Speaker 1: according to their beauty and skill in dressing, wherein they
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  Speaker 1: head to the same privilege with the men, to be
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  Speaker 1: determined by their own judgment. But constancy, chastisy, good sense,
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  Speaker 1: angered nature were not rated, because they would not bear
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  Speaker 1: the charge of collecting. To keep senators in the interest
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  Speaker 1: of the crown, it was proposed that the members should
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  Speaker 1: raffle for employment. Every man first taken an oath and
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  Speaker 1: giving security that he would vote for the court, whether
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  Speaker 1: he won or not, after which the losers had in
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  Speaker 1: their turn the liberty of raffling upon the next vacancy.
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  Speaker 1: Thus hope and expectation would be kept alive. None would
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  Speaker 1: complain of broken promises, but impute the disappointments wholly to fortune,
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  Speaker 1: whose shoulders are broader and stronger than those of a ministry.
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  Speaker 1: Another professor showed me a large paper of instructions for
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  Speaker 1: discovering plots and conspiracies against the government. He advised great
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  Speaker 1: statesmen to examine into the diet of all suspected persons
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  Speaker 1: their times of eating upon which side they lay in bed,
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  Speaker 1: with which hand they wiped their posteriors. Take a strict
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  Speaker 1: view of their excrements, and from the color, the odor,
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  Speaker 1: the taste, the consistence, the crudeness or maturity of digestion,
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  Speaker 1: form a judgment of their thoughts and designs. Because men
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  Speaker 1: are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent as when they
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  Speaker 1: are at stool, which he found by frequent experiment. For
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  Speaker 1: in such conjectures, which he used merely as a trial
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  Speaker 1: to consider which was the best way of murdering the king,
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  Speaker 1: his order would have a tincature of green, but quite
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  Speaker 1: different when he thought only of raising an insurrection or
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  Speaker 1: burning the metropolis. The whole discourse was written with great acuteness,
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  Speaker 1: containing many observations, both curious and useful for politicians, But
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  Speaker 1: as I conceived not altogether complete this, I ventured to
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  Speaker 1: tell the author, and offered, if he pleased, to supply
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  Speaker 1: him with some additions. He received my proposition with more
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  Speaker 1: compliance than is usual among writers, especially those of the
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  Speaker 1: projecting species, professing he would be glad to receive further information.
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  Speaker 1: I told him that in the kingdom of Trypnia by
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  Speaker 1: the natives called Langdon, where I had sojourned some time
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  Speaker 1: in my travels. The bulk of the people consist, in
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  Speaker 1: a manner, wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers,
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  Speaker 1: together with the several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under
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  Speaker 1: the colors the conduct and the pay of ministers of
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  Speaker 1: state and their deputies. The plots in that kingdom are
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  Speaker 1: usually the workmanship of those persons who desire to raise
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  Speaker 1: their own characters, of profound politicians, to restore new vigor
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  Speaker 1: to a crazy administration, to stifle or divert general discontents,
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  Speaker 1: to fill their coffers with forfeitures, and raise or sink
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  Speaker 1: the opinion of public credit, as either shall best answer
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  Speaker 1: their private advantage. It is first agreed and settled among
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  Speaker 1: them what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot.
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  Speaker 1: Then effect your care is taken to secure all their
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  Speaker 1: letters and papers, and put the owners in chains. These
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  Speaker 1: papers are delivered to a set of artists very dexterous
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  Speaker 1: in finding out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and letters.
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  Speaker 1: For instance, they can discover a close stool to signify
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  Speaker 1: a privy council, a flock of geese, a senate, a
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  Speaker 1: lame dog and invader the plague, a standing army, a buzzard,
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  Speaker 1: a prime minister, the gout, a high priest, a gibbet,
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  Speaker 1: a secretary of state, a chamber pot, a committee of grandees,
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  Speaker 1: a sieve, a court lady, a broomer, revolution, a mousetrap
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  Speaker 1: and employment, a bottomless pitter, treasury, a sinker court, a
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  Speaker 1: cap and bells, a favorite, a broken read, a court
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  Speaker 1: of justice, an empty ton, a general, a running sow
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  Speaker 1: the administration. When this method fails, they have two others
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  Speaker 1: more effectual, which the learned among them call them acrostics
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  Speaker 1: and anagrams. First, they can decipher all initial letters into
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  Speaker 1: political meanings. Thus N shall signify a plot, B, a
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  Speaker 1: regiment of horse, l a fleet at sea. Or Secondly,
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  Speaker 1: by transposing the letters of the alphabet in any suspected paper,
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  Speaker 1: they can lay open the deepest designs of a discontented party. So,
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  Speaker 1: for example, if I should say, in a letter to
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  Speaker 1: a friend, our brother Tom has just got the piles,
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  Speaker 1: a skillful decipher will discover that the same letters which
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  Speaker 1: composed that sentence may be analyzed into the following words
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  Speaker 1: resist a plot is brought home the tour, and this
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  Speaker 1: is the anagrammatic method. The Professor made me great acknowledgments
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  Speaker 1: for communicating these observations, and promised to make honorable mention
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  Speaker 1: of me in his treatise. I saw nothing in this
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  Speaker 1: country that could invite me to a longer continuance, and
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  Speaker 1: began to think of returning home to England. End of
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  Speaker 1: Part three, Chapter six,