[i] LETTER FROM Capt. GULLIVER, TO HIS Coufin Sr MPSON. HOPE, you will be ready to own publickly, whenever you fhall be called to it, that by your great and frequent Urgency, you prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect Account of my Travels; with Direction to hire fome young Gentlemen of either University to put them in Order, and correct the Style, as my in Dampier did by my Advice, in his Book called, A Voyage round the World. But, I do not remember, I gave you Power to VOL. III, A confent, confent, that any Thing fhould be omitted, and much less that any Thing fhould be inferted: Therefore, as to the latter, I do here renounce every Thing of that Kind; particularly a Paragraph about her Majesty the late Queen Anne, of most pious and glorious Memory; although I did reverence and efteem her more than any of human Species. But you, or your Interpolator, ought to have confidered, that as it was not my Inclination, fo was it not decent to praise any Animal of our Compofition before my Mafter Houyhnhnm: And befides, the Fact was altogether falfe; for, to my Knowledge, being in England during fome Part of her Majesty's Reign, fhe did govern by a Chief Minifter; nay, even by two fucceffively; the firft whereof was the Lord of Godolphin, and the second the Lord of Oxford; fo that you have made me fay the Thing which was not. Likewife, in the Account of the Academy of Projectors, and feveral Paffages of my Discourse to my Mafter Houyhnhnm, you have either omitted fome material Circumftances, or minced or changed them in fuch a Manner, that I do hardly know mine own Work. When I for merly hinted to you fomething of this hen I for in a Letter, you were pleased to anfwer, that you were afraid of giving Offence; that People in Power were very watchful over the Prefs; and apt not only to interpret, but to punish every Thing which looked like an Innuendo (as I think you called it.) But pray, how could that which I fpoke fo many Years ago, and at above five thoufand Leagues diftance, in another Reign, be applyed to any of the Yaboos, who now are faid to govern the Herd; especially at a Time when I little thought on, or feared the Unhappiness of living under them? Have not I the most Reason to complain, when I see these very Yaboos carried by Houyhnhnms in a Vehicle, as if these were Brutes, and those the rational Creatures? And, indeed, to avoid fo monftrous and deteftable a Sight, was one principal Motive of my Retirement hither. THUS much I thought proper to tell you in Relation to your self, and to the Trust I reposed in you: I DO in the next Place complain of my own. great Want of Judgment, in being prevailed upon by the Intreaties and falfe Reasonings of you and some others, very much against mine own Opinion, to fuffer my Travels to be published. Pray bring to your Mind how often I defired you to confider, when you infifted on the Motive of Publick Good that the Taboos were a Species of Animals utterly incapable of Amendment by Precepts or Examples: And so it hath proved; for instead of seeing a full Stop put to all Abuses and Corruptions, at least in this little Ifland, as I had Reason to expect: Behold, after above fix Months Warning, I cannot learn that my Book hath produced one fingle Effect according to mine Intentions: I defired you would let me know by a Letter, when Party and Faction were extinguished; Judges learned and upright; Pleaders honeft and modeft, with fome Tincture of common Sense; and Smithfield blazing with Pyramids of Law-Books; the young Nobility's Education entirely changed; the Physicians banished ; the Female Yaboos abounding in Virtue, Honour, Truth and good Senfe: Courts and Levees of great Minifters thoroughly weeded and fwept; Wit, Merit and Learning rewarded; all Difgracers of the Prefs in Profe and Verfe, condemned to eat nothing but their own Cotton, and quench their Thirft with their own Ink. Thefe, and a thoufand A 2 fand other Reformations, I firmly counteo upon by your Encouragement; as indeed, they were plainly deducible from the Precepts delivered in my Book. And, it must be owned, that feven Months were a fufficient Time to correct every Vice and Folly to which raboos are fubject; if their Natures had been capable of the leaft Difpofition to Virtue or Wisdom: Yet fo far have you been from anfwering mine Expectation in any of your Letters, that on the contrary, you are loading our Carrier every Week with Libels, and Keys, and Reflections, and Memoirs, and Second Parts; wherein I fee myself accused of reflecting upon great States-Folk; of degrading human Nature, (for fo they have ftill, the Confidence to style it) and of abufing the Female Sex. I find likewife, that the Writers of those Bundles are not agreed among themfelves; for fome of them will not allow me to be Author of mine own Travels; and others make me Author of Books to which I am wholly a Stranger. I FIND likewife, that your Printer hath been fo careless as to confound the Times, and mistake the Dates of my feveral Voyages and Returns ; neither affigning the true Year, or the true Month, or Day of the Month: And, I hear the original Manufcript is all deftroyed, fince the Publication of my Book. Neither have I any Copy left; however, I have sent you fome Corrections, which you may infert, if ever there fhould be a fecond Edition: And yet I cannot ftand to them, but fhall leave that Matter to my judicious and candid Readers, to adjuft it as they please. I hear, fome of our Sea-Tabcos find Fault with my Sea-Language, as not proper in many Parts, nor now in Ufe. I cannot help it. In my first Voyages, while I was young, I was inftructed by the oldest Mariners, Mariners, and learned to speak as they did. But, I have fince found, that the Sea-Taboos are apt, like the Land ones, to become new fangled in their Words, which the latter change every Year; infomuch, as I remember upon each Return to mine own Country, their old Dialect was fo altered, that I could hardly understand the new. And I observe, when any Taboo comes from London, out of Curiosity, to vifit me at mine own Houfe, we neither of us are able to deliver our Conceptions in a Manner intelligible to the other. If the Cenfure of Yaboos could any Way affect me, I should have great Reason to complain, that fome of them are fo bold as to think my Book of Travels a meer Fiction out of mine own Brain; and have gone fo far as to drop Hints, that the Houyhnhnms, and Yaboos have no more Existence, than the Inhabitants of Utopia. INDEED I muft confefs, that as to the People of Lilliput, Brobdingrag (for fo the Word fhould have been fpelt, and not erroneoufly Brobdingnag) and Laputa; I have never yet heard of any Yahoo fo prefumptuous as to difpute their Being, or the Facts I have related concerning them; because the Truth immediately ftrikes every Reader with Conviction. And, is there lefs Probability in my Account of the Houyhnhnms or Yaboos, when it is manifest as to the latter, there are fo many Thousands, even in this City, who only differ from their Brother Brutes in Houynhnmland, because they use a Sort of Jabber, and do not go naked. I wrote for their Amendment, and not their Approbation. The united Praise of the whole Race, would be of lefs Confequence to me, than the neighing of those two degenerate Houyhnhnms I keep in my Stable; because, from thefe, degenerate as they are, I ftill improve A 3 |