Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, Page 36

  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 toexplain the English constitution.

  The reader may please to observe, that the following extract of manyconversations I had with my master, contains a summary of the mostmaterial points which were discoursed at several times for above twoyears; his honour often desiring fuller satisfaction, as I fartherimproved in the _Houyhnhnm_ tongue. I laid before him, as well as Icould, the whole state of Europe; I discoursed of trade and manufactures,of arts and sciences; and the answers I gave to all the questions hemade, as they arose upon several subjects, were a fund of conversationnot to be exhausted. But I shall here only set down the substance ofwhat passed between us concerning my own country, reducing it in order aswell as I can, without any regard to time or other circumstances, while Istrictly adhere to truth. My only concern is, that I shall hardly beable to do justice to my master's arguments and expressions, which mustneeds suffer by my want of capacity, as well as by a translation into ourbarbarous English.

  In obedience, therefore, to his honour's commands, I related to him theRevolution under the Prince of Orange; the long war with France, enteredinto by the said prince, and renewed by his successor, the present queen,wherein the greatest powers of Christendom were engaged, and which stillcontinued: I computed, at his request, "that about a million of _Yahoos_might have been killed in the whole progress of it; and perhaps a hundredor 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 countrygo to war with another?" I answered "they were innumerable; but I shouldonly mention a few of the chief. Sometimes the ambition of princes, whonever think they have land or people enough to govern; sometimes thecorruption of ministers, who engage their master in a war, in order tostifle or divert the clamour of the subjects against their eviladministration. Difference in opinions has cost many millions of lives:for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether thejuice of a certain berry be blood or wine; whether whistling be a vice ora 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 solong 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 themshall dispossess a third of his dominions, where neither of them pretendto any right. Sometimes one prince quarrels with another for fear theother should quarrel with him. Sometimes a war is entered upon, becausethe enemy is too strong; and sometimes, because he is too weak.Sometimes our neighbours want the things which we have, or have thethings which we want, and we both fight, till they take ours, or give ustheirs. It is a very justifiable cause of a war, to invade a countryafter the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence, orembroiled by factions among themselves. It is justifiable to enter intowar against our nearest ally, when one of his towns lies convenient forus, or a territory of land, that would render our dominions round andcomplete. If a prince sends forces into a nation, where the people arepoor and ignorant, he may lawfully put half of them to death, and makeslaves of the rest, in order to civilize and reduce them from theirbarbarous way of living. It is a very kingly, honourable, and frequentpractice, when one prince desires the assistance of another, to securehim against an invasion, that the assistant, when he has driven out theinvader, should seize on the dominions himself, and kill, imprison, orbanish, the prince he came to relieve. Alliance by blood, or marriage,is a frequent cause of war between princes; and the nearer the kindredis, the greater their disposition to quarrel; poor nations are hungry,and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be atvariance. For these reasons, the trade of a soldier is held the mosthonourable 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 makewar by themselves, who hire out their troops to richer nations, for somuch 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 manynorthern parts of Europe."

  "What you have told me," said my master, "upon the subject of war, doesindeed discover most admirably the effects of that reason you pretend to:however, it is happy that the shame is greater than the danger; and thatnature has left you utterly incapable of doing much mischief. For, yourmouths lying flat with your faces, you can hardly bite each other to anypurpose, unless by consent. Then as to the claws upon your feet beforeand behind, they are so short and tender, that one of our _Yahoos_ woulddrive a dozen of yours before him. And therefore, in recounting thenumbers of those who have been killed in battle, I cannot but think youhave said the thing which is not."

  I could not forbear shaking my head, and smiling a little at hisignorance. And being no stranger to the art of war, I gave him adescription 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 theair, smoke, noise, confusion, trampling to death under horses' feet,flight, pursuit, victory; fields strewed with carcases, left for food todogs and wolves and birds of prey; plundering, stripping, ravishing,burning, and destroying. And to set forth the valour of my own dearcountrymen, I assured him, "that I had seen them blow up a hundredenemies at once in a siege, and as many in a ship, and beheld the deadbodies drop down in pieces from the clouds, to the great diversion of thespectators."

  I was going on to more particulars, when my master commanded me silence.He said, "whoever understood the nature of _Yahoos_, might easily believeit possible for so vile an animal to be capable of every action I hadnamed, if their strength and cunning equalled their malice. But as mydiscourse had increased his abhorrence of the whole species, so he foundit gave him a disturbance in his mind to which he was wholly a strangerbefore. 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 odiousqualities, than he did a _gnnayh_ (a bird of prey) for its cruelty, or asharp stone for cutting his hoof. But when a creature pretending toreason could be capable of such enormities, he dreaded lest thecorruption of that faculty might be worse than brutality itself. Heseemed therefore confident, that, instead of reason we were onlypossessed of some quality fitted to increase our natural vices; as thereflection from a troubled stream returns the image of an ill shapenbody, not only larger but more distorted."

  He added, "that he had heard too much upon the subject of war, both inthis and some former discourses. There was another point, which a littleperplexed him at present. I had informed him, that some of our crew lefttheir country on account of being ruined by law; that I had alreadyexplained the meaning of the word; but he was at a loss how it shouldcome to pass, that the law, which was intended for every man'spreservation, should be any man's ruin. Therefore he desired to befurther satisfied what I meant by law, and the dispensers thereof,according to the present practice in my own country; because he thoughtnature and reason were sufficient guides for a reasonable animal, as wepretended 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 muchconversed, further than by employing advocates, in vain, upon someinjustices that had been done me: however, I would give him all thesatisfaction I was able."

  I said, "there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth inthe art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white isblack, and black is whi
te, according as they are paid. To this societyall the rest of the people are slaves. For example, if my neighbour hasa mind to my cow, he has a lawyer to prove that he ought to have my cowfrom me. I must then hire another to defend my right, it being againstall 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 greatdisadvantages: first, my lawyer, being practised almost from his cradlein defending falsehood, is quite out of his element when he would be anadvocate for justice, which is an unnatural office he always attemptswith great awkwardness, if not with ill-will. The second disadvantageis, that my lawyer must proceed with great caution, or else he will bereprimanded by the judges, and abhorred by his brethren, as one thatwould lessen the practice of the law. And therefore I have but twomethods to preserve my cow. The first is, to gain over my adversary'slawyer with a double fee, who will then betray his client by insinuatingthat he hath justice on his side. The second way is for my lawyer tomake my cause appear as unjust as he can, by allowing the cow to belongto my adversary: and this, if it be skilfully done, will certainlybespeak the favour of the bench. Now your honour is to know, that thesejudges are persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, aswell as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the mostdexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy; and having been biassed alltheir lives against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity offavouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I have known some of themrefuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injurethe 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 recordall the decisions formerly made against common justice, and the generalreason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce asauthorities to justify the most iniquitous opinions; and the judges neverfail of directing accordingly.

  "In pleading, they studiously avoid entering into the merits of thecause; but are loud, violent, and tedious, in dwelling upon allcircumstances which are not to the purpose. For instance, in the casealready mentioned; they never desire to know what claim or title myadversary has to my cow; but whether the said cow were red or black; herhorns 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 subjectto, and the like; after which they consult precedents, adjourn the causefrom 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 andjargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein alltheir laws are written, which they take special care to multiply; wherebythey have wholly confounded the very essence of truth and falsehood, ofright and wrong; so that it will take thirty years to decide, whether thefield left me by my ancestors for six generations belongs to me, or to astranger three hundred miles off.

  "In the trial of persons accused for crimes against the state, the methodis much more short and commendable: the judge first sends to sound thedisposition of those in power, after which he can easily hang or save acriminal, strictly preserving all due forms of law."

  Here my master interposing, said, "it was a pity, that creatures endowedwith such prodigious abilities of mind, as these lawyers, by thedescription I gave of them, must certainly be, were not rather encouragedto be instructors of others in wisdom and knowledge." In answer to whichI assured his honour, "that in all points out of their own trade, theywere usually the most ignorant and stupid generation among us, the mostdespicable in common conversation, avowed enemies to all knowledge andlearning, and equally disposed to pervert the general reason of mankindin every other subject of discourse as in that of their own profession."