GULLIVER’S
TRAVELS
PART 23
CHAPTER V.
The author at his master’s
command, informs him of the state of England. The causes of war among the
princes of Europe. The author begins to explain the English constitution.
The reader
may please to observe, that the following extract of many conversations I had
with my master, contains a summary of the most material points which were
discoursed at several times for above two years; his honour often desiring
fuller satisfaction, as I farther improved in the Houyhnhnm
tongue. I laid before him, as well as I could, the whole state of Europe;
I discoursed of trade and manufactures, of arts and sciences; and the answers I
gave to all the questions he made, as they arose upon several subjects, were a
fund of conversation not to be exhausted. But I shall here only set down
the substance of what passed between us concerning my own country, reducing it
in order as well as I can, without any regard to time or other circumstances,
while I strictly adhere to truth. My only concern is, that I shall hardly
be able to do justice to my master’s arguments and expressions, which must
needs suffer by my want of capacity, as well as by a translation into our
barbarous English.
In
obedience, therefore, to his honour’s commands, I related to him the Revolution
under the Prince of Orange; the long war with France, entered into by the said
prince, and renewed by his successor, the present queen, wherein the greatest
powers of Christendom were engaged, and which still continued: I computed, at
his request, “that about a million of Yahoos might have been killed in
the whole progress of it; and perhaps a hundred or more cities taken, and five
times as many ships burnt or sunk.”
He asked
me, “what were the usual causes or motives that made one country go to war with
another?” I answered “they were innumerable; but I should only mention a
few of the chief. Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think they
have land or people enough to govern; sometimes the corruption of ministers,
who engage their master in a war, in order to stifle or divert the clamour of
the subjects against their evil administration. Difference in opinions
has cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread
be flesh; whether the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine; whether
whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw
it into the fire; what is the best colour for a coat, whether black, white,
red, or gray; and whether it should be long or short, narrow or wide, dirty or
clean; with many more. Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of
so long a continuance, as those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially
if it be in things indifferent.
“Sometimes
the quarrel between two princes is to decide which of them shall dispossess a
third of his dominions, where neither of them pretend to any right.
Sometimes one prince quarrels with another for fear the other should quarrel
with him. Sometimes a war is entered upon, because the enemy is too
strong; and sometimes, because he is too weak. Sometimes our neighbours
want the things which we have, or have the things which we want, and we both
fight, till they take ours, or give us theirs. It is a very justifiable
cause of a war, to invade a country after the people have been wasted by
famine, destroyed by pestilence, or embroiled by factions among
themselves. It is justifiable to enter into war against our nearest ally,
when one of his towns lies convenient for us, or a territory of land, that
would render our dominions round and complete. If a prince sends forces
into a nation, where the people are poor and ignorant, he may lawfully put half
of them to death, and make slaves of the rest, in order to civilize and reduce
them from their barbarous way of living. It is a very kingly, honourable,
and frequent practice, when one prince desires the assistance of another, to
secure him against an invasion, that the assistant, when he has driven out the
invader, should seize on the dominions himself, and kill, imprison, or banish,
the prince he came to relieve. Alliance by blood, or marriage, is a
frequent cause of war between princes; and the nearer the kindred is, the
greater their disposition to quarrel; poor nations are hungry, and rich nations
are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance. For these
reasons, the trade of a soldier is held the most honourable of all others;
because a soldier is a Yahoo hired to kill, in cold blood, as many of
his own species, who have never offended him, as possibly he can.
“There is
likewise a kind of beggarly princes in Europe, not able to make war by
themselves, who hire out their troops to richer nations, for so much a day to
each man; of which they keep three-fourths to themselves, and it is the best
part of their maintenance: such are those in many northern parts of Europe.”
“What you
have told me,” said my master, “upon the subject of war, does indeed discover
most admirably the effects of that reason you pretend to: however, it is happy
that the shame is greater than the danger; and that nature has left you utterly
incapable of doing much mischief. For, your mouths lying flat with your
faces, you can hardly bite each other to any purpose, unless by consent.
Then as to the claws upon your feet before and behind, they are so short and
tender, that one of our Yahoos would drive a dozen of yours before
him. And therefore, in recounting the numbers of those who have been
killed in battle, I cannot but think you have said the thing which is not.”
I could
not forbear shaking my head, and smiling a little at his ignorance. And
being no stranger to the art of war, I gave him a description of cannons,
culverins, muskets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets,
battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments, sea
fights, ships sunk with a thousand men, twenty thousand killed on each side,
dying groans, limbs flying in the air, smoke, noise, confusion, trampling to
death under horses’ feet, flight, pursuit, victory; fields strewed with
carcases, left for food to dogs and wolves and birds of prey; plundering,
stripping, ravishing, burning, and destroying. And to set forth the
valour of my own dear countrymen, I assured him, “that I had seen them blow up
a hundred enemies at once in a siege, and as many in a ship, and beheld the
dead bodies drop down in pieces from the clouds, to the great diversion of the
spectators.”
I was
going on to more particulars, when my master commanded me silence. He
said, “whoever understood the nature of Yahoos, might easily believe it
possible for so vile an animal to be capable of every action I had named, if
their strength and cunning equalled their malice. But as my discourse had
increased his abhorrence of the whole species, so he found it gave him a
disturbance in his mind to which he was wholly a stranger before. He
thought his ears, being used to such abominable words, might, by degrees, admit
them with less detestation: that although he hated the Yahoos of this
country, yet he no more blamed them for their odious qualities, than he did a gnnayh
(a bird of prey) for its cruelty, or a sharp stone for cutting his hoof.
But when a creature pretending to reason could be capable of such enormities, he
dreaded lest the corruption of that faculty might be worse than brutality
itself. He seemed therefore confident, that, instead of reason we were
only possessed of some quality fitted to increase our natural vices; as the
reflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill shapen body, not
only larger but more distorted.”
He added,
“that he had heard too much upon the subject of war, both in this and some
former discourses. There was another point, which a little perplexed him
at present. I had informed him, that some of our crew left their country
on account of being ruined by law; that I had already explained the meaning of
the word; but he was at a loss how it should come to pass, that the law, which
was intended for every man’s preservation, should be any man’s ruin.
Therefore he desired to be further satisfied what I meant by law, and the
dispensers thereof, according to the present practice in my own country;
because he thought nature and reason were sufficient guides for a reasonable animal,
as we pretended to be, in showing us what he ought to do, and what to avoid.”
I assured
his honour, “that the law was a science in which I had not much conversed,
further than by employing advocates, in vain, upon some injustices that had
been done me: however, I would give him all the satisfaction I was able.”
I said,
“there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of
proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is
white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the
people are slaves. For example, if my neighbour has a mind to my cow, he
has a lawyer to prove that he ought to have my cow from me. I must then
hire another to defend my right, it being against all rules of law that any man
should be allowed to speak for himself. Now, in this case, I, who am the
right owner, lie under two great disadvantages: first, my lawyer, being
practised almost from his cradle in defending falsehood, is quite out of his
element when he would be an advocate for justice, which is an unnatural office
he always attempts with great awkwardness, if not with ill-will. The
second disadvantage is, that my lawyer must proceed with great caution, or else
he will be reprimanded by the judges, and abhorred by his brethren, as one that
would lessen the practice of the law. And therefore I have but two
methods to preserve my cow. The first is, to gain over my adversary’s
lawyer with a double fee, who will then betray his client by insinuating that he
hath justice on his side. The second way is for my lawyer to make my
cause appear as unjust as he can, by allowing the cow to belong to my
adversary: and this, if it be skilfully done, will certainly bespeak the favour
of the bench. Now your honour is to know, that these judges are persons
appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for the trial of
criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or
lazy; and having been biassed all their lives against truth and equity, lie
under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that
I have known some of them refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay,
rather than injure the faculty, by doing any thing unbecoming their nature or their
office.
“It is a
maxim among these lawyers that whatever has been done before, may legally be
done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions
formerly made against common justice, and the general reason of mankind.
These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the
most iniquitous opinions; and the judges never fail of directing accordingly.
“In
pleading, they studiously avoid entering into the merits of the cause; but are
loud, violent, and tedious, in dwelling upon all circumstances which are not to
the purpose. For instance, in the case already mentioned; they never
desire to know what claim or title my adversary has to my cow; but whether the
said cow were red or black; her horns long or short; whether the field I graze
her in be round or square; whether she was milked at home or abroad; what
diseases she is subject to, and the like; after which they consult precedents,
adjourn the cause from time to time, and in ten, twenty, or thirty years, come
to an issue.
“It is
likewise to be observed, that this society has a peculiar cant and jargon of
their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are
written, which they take special care to multiply; whereby they have wholly
confounded the very essence of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong; so that
it will take thirty years to decide, whether the field left me by my ancestors
for six generations belongs to me, or to a stranger three hundred miles off.
“In the
trial of persons accused for crimes against the state, the method is much more
short and commendable: the judge first sends to sound the disposition of those
in power, after which he can easily hang or save a criminal, strictly
preserving all due forms of law.”
Here my
master interposing, said, “it was a pity, that creatures endowed with such
prodigious abilities of mind, as these lawyers, by the description I gave of
them, must certainly be, were not rather encouraged to be instructors of others
in wisdom and knowledge.” In answer to which I assured his honour, “that
in all points out of their own trade, they were usually the most ignorant and
stupid generation among us, the most despicable in common conversation, avowed
enemies to all knowledge and learning, and equally disposed to pervert the
general reason of mankind in every other subject of discourse as in that of
their own profession.”
CHAPTER VI.
A continuation of the state of
England under Queen Anne. The character of a first minister of state in
European courts.
My master
was yet wholly at a loss to understand what motives could incite this race of
lawyers to perplex, disquiet, and weary themselves, and engage in a confederacy
of injustice, merely for the sake of injuring their fellow-animals; neither
could he comprehend what I meant in saying, they did it for hire.
Whereupon I was at much pains to describe to him the use of money, the
materials it was made of, and the value of the metals; “that when a Yahoo
had got a great store of this precious substance, he was able to purchase
whatever he had a mind to; the finest clothing, the noblest houses, great
tracts of land, the most costly meats and drinks, and have his choice of the
most beautiful females. Therefore since money alone was able to perform
all these feats, our Yahoos thought they could never have enough of it
to spend, or to save, as they found themselves inclined, from their natural
bent either to profusion or avarice; that the rich man enjoyed the fruit of the
poor man’s labour, and the latter were a thousand to one in proportion to the
former; that the bulk of our people were forced to live miserably, by labouring
every day for small wages, to make a few live plentifully.”
I enlarged
myself much on these, and many other particulars to the same purpose; but his
honour was still to seek; for he went upon a supposition, that all animals had
a title to their share in the productions of the earth, and especially those
who presided over the rest. Therefore he desired I would let him know,
“what these costly meats were, and how any of us happened to want them?”
Whereupon I enumerated as many sorts as came into my head, with the various
methods of dressing them, which could not be done without sending vessels by
sea to every part of the world, as well for liquors to drink as for sauces and
innumerable other conveniences. I assured him “that this whole globe of
earth must be at least three times gone round before one of our better female Yahoos
could get her breakfast, or a cup to put it in.” He said “that must needs
be a miserable country which cannot furnish food for its own inhabitants.
But what he chiefly wondered at was, how such vast tracts of ground as I
described should be wholly without fresh water, and the people put to the necessity
of sending over the sea for drink.” I replied “that England (the dear
place of my nativity) was computed to produce three times the quantity of food
more than its inhabitants are able to consume, as well as liquors extracted
from grain, or pressed out of the fruit of certain trees, which made excellent
drink, and the same proportion in every other convenience of life. But,
in order to feed the luxury and intemperance of the males, and the vanity of
the females, we sent away the greatest part of our necessary things to other
countries, whence, in return, we brought the materials of diseases, folly, and
vice, to spend among ourselves. Hence it follows of necessity, that vast
numbers of our people are compelled to seek their livelihood by begging, robbing,
stealing, cheating, pimping, flattering, suborning, forswearing, forging,
gaming, lying, fawning, hectoring, voting, scribbling, star-gazing, poisoning,
whoring, canting, libelling, freethinking, and the like occupations:” every one
of which terms I was at much pains to make him understand.
“That wine
was not imported among us from foreign countries to supply the want of water or
other drinks, but because it was a sort of liquid which made us merry by
putting us out of our senses, diverted all melancholy thoughts, begat wild
extravagant imaginations in the brain, raised our hopes and banished our fears,
suspended every office of reason for a time, and deprived us of the use of our
limbs, till we fell into a profound sleep; although it must be confessed, that we
always awaked sick and dispirited; and that the use of this liquor filled us
with diseases which made our lives uncomfortable and short.
“But
beside all this, the bulk of our people supported themselves by furnishing the
necessities or conveniences of life to the rich and to each other. For
instance, when I am at home, and dressed as I ought to be, I carry on my body
the workmanship of a hundred tradesmen; the building and furniture of my house
employ as many more, and five times the number to adorn my wife.”
I was
going on to tell him of another sort of people, who get their livelihood by
attending the sick, having, upon some occasions, informed his honour that many
of my crew had died of diseases. But here it was with the utmost
difficulty that I brought him to apprehend what I meant. “He could easily
conceive, that a Houyhnhnm, grew weak and heavy a few days before his
death, or by some accident might hurt a limb; but that nature, who works all
things to perfection, should suffer any pains to breed in our bodies, he
thought impossible, and desired to know the reason of so unaccountable an
evil.”
I told him
“we fed on a thousand things which operated contrary to each other; that we ate
when we were not hungry, and drank without the provocation of thirst; that we
sat whole nights drinking strong liquors, without eating a bit, which disposed
us to sloth, inflamed our bodies, and precipitated or prevented digestion; that
prostitute female Yahoos acquired a certain malady, which bred
rottenness in the bones of those who fell into their embraces; that this, and
many other diseases, were propagated from father to son; so that great numbers
came into the world with complicated maladies upon them; that it would be
endless to give him a catalogue of all diseases incident to human bodies, for
they would not be fewer than five or six hundred, spread over every limb and
joint—in short, every part, external and intestine, having diseases
appropriated to itself. To remedy which, there was a sort of people bred
up among us in the profession, or pretence, of curing the sick. And
because I had some skill in the faculty, I would, in gratitude to his honour,
let him know the whole mystery and method by which they proceed.
“Their
fundamental is, that all diseases arise from repletion; whence they conclude,
that a great evacuation of the body is necessary, either through the natural
passage or upwards at the mouth. Their next business is from herbs,
minerals, gums, oils, shells, salts, juices, sea-weed, excrements, barks of
trees, serpents, toads, frogs, spiders, dead men’s flesh and bones, birds,
beasts, and fishes, to form a composition, for smell and taste, the most
abominable, nauseous, and detestable, they can possibly contrive, which the
stomach immediately rejects with loathing, and this they call a vomit; or else,
from the same store-house, with some other poisonous additions, they command us
to take in at the orifice above or below (just as the physician then happens to
be disposed) a medicine equally annoying and disgustful to the bowels; which,
relaxing the belly, drives down all before it; and this they call a purge, or a
clyster. For nature (as the physicians allege) having intended the
superior anterior orifice only for the intromission of solids and liquids, and
the inferior posterior for ejection, these artists ingeniously considering that
in all diseases nature is forced out of her seat, therefore, to replace her in
it, the body must be treated in a manner directly contrary, by interchanging
the use of each orifice; forcing solids and liquids in at the anus, and making
evacuations at the mouth.
“But,
besides real diseases, we are subject to many that are only imaginary, for
which the physicians have invented imaginary cures; these have their several
names, and so have the drugs that are proper for them; and with these our
female Yahoos are always infested.
“One great
excellency in this tribe, is their skill at prognostics, wherein they seldom
fail; their predictions in real diseases, when they rise to any degree of
malignity, generally portending death, which is always in their power, when
recovery is not: and therefore, upon any unexpected signs of amendment, after
they have pronounced their sentence, rather than be accused as false prophets,
they know how to approve their sagacity to the world, by a seasonable dose.
“They are
likewise of special use to husbands and wives who are grown weary of their
mates; to eldest sons, to great ministers of state, and often to princes.”
I had
formerly, upon occasion, discoursed with my master upon the nature of
government in general, and particularly of our own excellent constitution,
deservedly the wonder and envy of the whole world. But having here
accidentally mentioned a minister of state, he commanded me, some time after,
to inform him, “what species of Yahoo I particularly meant by that
appellation.”
I told
him, “that a first or chief minister of state, who was the person I intended to
describe, was the creature wholly exempt from joy and grief, love and hatred,
pity and anger; at least, makes use of no other passions, but a violent desire
of wealth, power, and titles; that he applies his words to all uses, except to
the indication of his mind; that he never tells a truth but with an intent that
you should take it for a lie; nor a lie, but with a design that you should take
it for a truth; that those he speaks worst of behind their backs are in the
surest way of preferment; and whenever he begins to praise you to others, or to
yourself, you are from that day forlorn. The worst mark you can receive
is a promise, especially when it is confirmed with an oath; after which, every
wise man retires, and gives over all hopes.
“There are
three methods, by which a man may rise to be chief minister. The first
is, by knowing how, with prudence, to dispose of a wife, a daughter, or a
sister; the second, by betraying or undermining his predecessor; and the third
is, by a furious zeal, in public assemblies, against the corruption’s of the
court. But a wise prince would rather choose to employ those who practise
the last of these methods; because such zealots prove always the most
obsequious and subservient to the will and passions of their master. That
these ministers, having all employments at their disposal, preserve themselves
in power, by bribing the majority of a senate or great council; and at last, by
an expedient, called an act of indemnity” (whereof I described the nature to
him), “they secure themselves from after-reckonings, and retire from the public
laden with the spoils of the nation.
“The
palace of a chief minister is a seminary to breed up others in his own trade:
the pages, lackeys, and porters, by imitating their master, become ministers of
state in their several districts, and learn to excel in the three principal
ingredients, of insolence, lying, and bribery. Accordingly, they have a
subaltern court paid to them by persons of the best rank; and sometimes by the
force of dexterity and impudence, arrive, through several gradations, to be
successors to their lord.
“He is
usually governed by a decayed wench, or favourite footman, who are the tunnels
through which all graces are conveyed, and may properly be called, in the last
resort, the governors of the kingdom.”
One day,
in discourse, my master, having heard me mention the nobility of my country,
was pleased to make me a compliment which I could not pretend to deserve: “that
he was sure I must have been born of some noble family, because I far exceeded
in shape, colour, and cleanliness, all the Yahoos of his nation,
although I seemed to fail in strength and agility, which must be imputed to my
different way of living from those other brutes; and besides I was not only
endowed with the faculty of speech, but likewise with some rudiments of reason,
to a degree that, with all his acquaintance, I passed for a prodigy.”
He made me
observe, “that among the Houyhnhnms, the white, the sorrel, and the
iron-gray, were not so exactly shaped as the bay, the dapple-gray, and the
black; nor born with equal talents of mind, or a capacity to improve them; and
therefore continued always in the condition of servants, without ever aspiring
to match out of their own race, which in that country would be reckoned
monstrous and unnatural.”
I made his
honour my most humble acknowledgments for the good opinion he was pleased to
conceive of me, but assured him at the same time, “that my birth was of the
lower sort, having been born of plain honest parents, who were just able to
give me a tolerable education; that nobility, among us, was altogether a
different thing from the idea he had of it; that our young noblemen are bred from
their childhood in idleness and luxury; that, as soon as years will permit,
they consume their vigour, and contract odious diseases among lewd females; and
when their fortunes are almost ruined, they marry some woman of mean birth,
disagreeable person, and unsound constitution (merely for the sake of money),
whom they hate and despise. That the productions of such marriages are
generally scrofulous, rickety, or deformed children; by which means the family
seldom continues above three generations, unless the wife takes care to provide
a healthy father, among her neighbours or domestics, in order to improve and
continue the breed. That a weak diseased body, a meagre countenance, and
sallow complexion, are the true marks of noble blood; and a healthy robust
appearance is so disgraceful in a man of quality, that the world concludes his
real father to have been a groom or a coachman. The imperfections of his
mind run parallel with those of his body, being a composition of spleen,
dullness, ignorance, caprice, sensuality, and pride.
“Without the
consent of this illustrious body, no law can be enacted, repealed, or altered:
and these nobles have likewise the decision of all our possessions, without
appeal.”
To be continued
