Companions, wholly take them from the Improvement of their Minds, and force them, by the Loffes they have received, to learn and practise that infamous Dexterity upon others.

He was perfectly astonished with the historical Account I gave him of our Affairs during the laft Century, protefting it was only a Heap of Confpiracies, Rebellions, Murders, Maflacres, Revolutions, Banifhments, the very wor Effects that Avarice, Faction, Hypocrify, Perfidioufnefs, Cruelty, Rage, Madness, Hatred, Envy, Luft, Malice, or Ambition, could produce.

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His Majefty in another Audience was at the Pains to recapitulate the Sum of all I had spoken, compared the Queftions he made with the Anfwers I had given; then taking me into his Hands, and ftroaking me gently, delivered himself in these Words, which I fhall never forget, nor the Manner he spoke them in: My little Friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable Panegyric upon your Country: You have clearly proved that Ignorance, Idlenefs, and Vice are the proper Ingredients for Qualifying a Legiflator: That Laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by thofe whofe Intereft and Abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I obferve among you fome Lines of an Inftitution, which in its Original might have been tolerable, but thefe half erafed, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by Corruptions. It doth not appear from all you have faid, how any one Perfection is required toward the Procurement of any one Station among you; much less that Men are ennobled on Account of their Virtue, that Priests áre advanced for their Piety or Learning, Soldi-, ers for their Conduct or Valour, Judges for their

Integrity, Senators for the Love of their Country, or Counsellors for their Wisdom. As for your felf (continued the King) who have spent the greatest Part of your Life in Travelling, I am well difpofed to hope you may hitherto have efcaped many Vices of your Country. But by what I have gathered from your own Relation, and the Anfwers I have with much Pains wringed and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the Bulk of your Natives to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever fuffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.

CHA P. VII.

The Author's Love of his Country. He makes a Propofal of much Advantage to the King, which is rejected. The King's great Igno rance in Politics. The Learning of that Country very imperfect and confined. Their Laws, and military Affairs, and Parties in the State.

NOTH

OTHING but an extreme Love of Truth could have hindered me from concealing this Part of my Story. It was in vain to discover my Refentments, which were always turned into Ridicule; and I was forced to reft with Patience, while my noble and most beloved Country was fo injurioufly treated. I am heartily forry as any of my Readers can poffibly be, that fuch an Occafion was given: But this Prince happened to be fo curious and inquifitive upon every Particular, that it could not confift either with Gratitude or good Manners to refufe giving him what Satis

faction

faction I was able. Yet thus much I may be allowed to fay in my own Vindication, That I artfully eluded many of his Questions, and gave to every Point a more favourable Turn by many Degrees than the Strictnefs of Truth would allow. For I have always borne that laudable Partiality to my own Country, which Dionyfius Halicarnaffenfis with fo much Juftice recommends to an Hiftorian: I would hide the Frailties and Deformities of my political Mother, and place her Vir tues and Beauties in the most advantageous Light. This was my fincere Endeavour in thofe many Difcourfes I had with that Monarch, although it unfortunately failed of Succefs.

But great Allowances fhould be given to a King who lives wholly fecluded from the rest of the World, and must therefore be altogether unacquainted with the Manners and Cuftoms that moft prevail in other Nations: The Want of which Knowledge will ever produce many Prejudices, and a certain Narrowness of Thinking, from which we and the politer Countries of Europe are wholly exempted. And it would be hard, indeed, if fo remote a Prince's Notions of Virtue and Vice were to be offered as a Standard for all Mankind.

To confirm what I have now faid, and further, to fhew the miferable Effects of a confined Education, I fhall here infert a Paffage which will hardly obtain Belief. In Hopes to ingratiate myfelf farther into his Majefty's Favour, I told him of an Invention difcovered between three and four hundred Years ago, to make a certain Powder, into an Heap of which the smallest Spark of Fire falling, would kindle the Whole in a Moment, although it were as big as a Mountain, and make it all fly up in the Air together, with a Noife and Agitation greater L 2

than

than Thunder. That a proper Quantity of this Powder rammed into an hollow Tube of Brass or Iron, according to its Bignefs, would drive a Ball of Iron or Lead with fuch Violence and Speed, as That the nothing was able to fuftain its Force. largest Balls, thus discharged, would not only deftroy whole Ranks of an Army at once, but batter the strongest Walls to the Ground, fink down Ships, with a thousand Men in each, to the Bottom of the Sea; and, when linked together by a Chain, would cut through Mafts and Rigging, divide Hundreds of Bodies in the Middle, and lay all wafte before them. That we often put this Powder into large hollow Balls of Iron, and difcharged them by an Engine into fome City we were befieging, which would rip up the Pavements, tear the Houses to Pieces, burft and throw Splinters on every Side, dashing out the Brains of all who came near. That I knew the Ingredients very well, which were cheap, and common; I understood the Manner of compounding them, and could direct his Workmen how to make thofe Tubes of a Size proportionable to all other Things in his Majefty's Kingdom, and the largest need not be above an hundred Feet long; twenty or thirty of which Tubes, charged with the proper Quantity of Powder and Balls, would batter down the Walls of the strongest Town in his Dominions in few Hours, or deftroy the whole Metropolis, if ever it fhould pretend to difpute his abfolute Commands. This I humbly offered to his Majefty, as a small Tribute of Acknowledgment in Return of fo ma ny Marks that I had received of his Royal Fa your and Protection.

The

The King was ftruck with Horror at the Defeription I had given of thofe terrible Engines, and the Propofal I had made. He was amazed how fo impotent and groveling an Infect as I (these were his Expreffions) could entertain fuch inhuman Ideas, and in fo familiar a Manner, as to appear wholly unmoved at all the Scenes of Blood and Defolation, which I had painted as the common Effects of those deftructive Machines, whereof, he faid, fome evil Genius, Enemy to Mankind, must have been the first Contriver. As for himfelf, he protefted, that, although few Things delighted him fo much as new Difcoveries in Art or in Nature, yet he would rather lofe half his Kingdom, than be privy to fuch a Secret, which he commanded me, as I valued my Life, never to mention any more.

A ftrange Effect of narrow Principles and fort Views! that a Prince poffeffed of every Quality which procures Veneration, Love, and Efteem; of ftrong Parts, great Wisdom, and profoundLearning, endued with admirable Talents for Government, and almoft adored by his Subjects, fhould, from a nice unneceffary Scruple, whereof in Europe we can have no Conception, let flip an Opportunity put into his Hands, that would have made him abfolute Mafter of the Lives, the Liberties, and the Fortunes of his People. Neither do I fay this with the least, Intention to detract from the many Virtues of that excellent King, whofe Character, I am fenfible, will, on this Account, be very much leffened, in the Opinion of an English Reader: But I take this Defect among them to have rifen from their Ignorance, by not having hitherto reduced Politics into a Science, as the more acute Wits of Europe have done. For I

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