THE

PUBLISHER

TO THE

READER.

T

A

HE author of these travels, Mr Lemuel Gulliver, is my antient and intimate friend; there is likewife fome relation between us on the mother's fide. bout three years ago Mr Gulliver, growing weary of the concourfe of curious people coming to him at his houfe in Redriff, made a small purchase of land with a convenient houfe near Newark in Nottinghamshire, his native country; where he now lives retired, yet in good efteem among his neighbours.

ALTHO' Mr. Gulliver was born in Nottinghamshire, where his father dwelt, yet I have heard him fay, his family came from Oxfordshire; to confirm which, I have obferved in the church-yard at Banbury in that county feveral tombs and monuments of the Gullivers.

BEFORE he quitted Redriff, he left the cuftody of the following papers in my hands, with the liberty to difpofe of them as I fhould think fit. I have carefully perufed them three times: the ftyle is very plain and fimple ; and the only fault I find, is, that the author, after the manner of travellers, is a little too circumftantial. There is an air of truth apparent thro' the whole; and indeed the author was fo diftinguished for his veracity, that it became a fort of a proverb among his neighbours at Redriff, when any one affirmed a thing, to fay it was as true as if Mr Gulliver had spoken it.

By the advice of several worthy perfons, to whom, with the author's permiffion, I communicated these papers, I VOL. II.

Α

now

now venture to fend them into the world, hoping they may be, at least for some time, a better entertainment to our young noblemen, than the common fcribblers of litics and party.

po

THIS Volume would have been at least twice as large, if I had not made bold to ftrike out innumerable paffages relating to the winds and tides, as well as to the variations and bearings in the feveral voyages, together with the minute defcriptions of the management of the fhip in ftorms in the style of failors; likewise the account of longitudes and latitudes; wherein I have reason to apprehend that Mr Gulliver may be a little diffatisfied: but I was refolved to fit the work as much as poffible to the general capacity of readers. However, if my own ignorance in fea-affairs fhall have led me to commit fome mistakes, I alone am answerable for them; and, if any traveller hath a curiofity to fee the whole work at large, as it came from the hand of the author, I will be ready to gratify him.

As for any further particulars relating to the author, the reader will receive fatisfaction from the first the book.

pages of

RICHARD SYMPSON.

A

A

LETTER

FROM

Capt. GULLIVER to his Coufin Sympfon

I

[Written in the year 1727.]

HOPE you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you fhall be called to it, that by your great and frequent urgency you prevailed on me to publifh a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels, with direction to hire fome young gentleman of either univerfity to put them in order, and correct the ftyle, as my coufin Dampier did by my advice in his book called A voyagé round the world. But I do not remember I gave you power to 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 Queen Anne, of moft pious and glorious memory; altho' I did reverence and efteem her more than any of the human fpecies. 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 master Houyhnhnm: and befides, the fact was altogether false; for, to my knowledge, being in England during forne part of her Majefty's reign, fhe did govern by a chief minister; nay even by two fucceffively, the first whereof was the Lord of Godolphin, and the fecond the Lord of Oxford; fo that you made me say the thing that was not. Likewife in the account of the academy of projectors, and feveral paffages of my dif course to my master 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 formerly hinted to you fomething of this in a letter, you were pleased to answer, 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 punifh every thing which looked like an innuendo (as I think you call it.) But, pray how could that which I fpoke fo many years ago, and at above five thousand leagues distance, in another reign, be applied to any of the Yahoos, who now are faid to govern the herd; efpecially at a time when I little thought on, or feared the unhappiness of living under them? have not I the most reafon to complain, when I see these very Yahoos carried by Houyhnhnms in a vehicle, as if thefe were brutes and those the rational creatures; and indeed to avoid fo monftrous and deteftable a fight was one principal motive of my retirement hither.

THUS much I thought proper to tell you in relation to yourself, and to the truft I repofed in you.

I do in the next place complain of my own great want of judgment, in being prevailed upon by the intreaties and false reasonings of you and fome others, very much againft my own opinion, to fuffer my travels to be published. Pray bring to your mind how often I defired you to confider, when you infisted on the motive of public good, that the Yahoos were a fpecies of animals utterly incapable of amendment by precepts or example: and fo it hath proved; for, instead of feeing a full ftop put to all abufes and corruptions, at leaft in this little island, as I had reafon to expect; behold, after above fix months warning, I cannot learn that my book has 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 fenfe; and Smithfield blazing with pyramids of law-books: the young nobility's education entirely changed; the phyficians banifhed; the female Yahoos abounding in virtue, honour, truth, and good fenfe; courts and levees of great minifters thoroughly weded and swept ; wit, merit, and learning rewarded; all difgracers of the

prefs

prefs in profe and verfe condemned to eat nothing but their own cotton, and quench their thirst with their own ink. These, and a thoufand other reformations, I firmly counted 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 Yahoos are subject, if their natures had been capable of the leaft difpofition to virtue or wisdom: yet, fo far have you been from answering 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 fecond parts; wherein I fee myself accused of reflecting upon great ftates-folk; of degrading human nature (for fo they have ftill the confidence to ftile it) and of abufing the female fex. I find likewife that the writers of those bundles are not agreed among themfelves; for fome of them will not allow me to be the author of mine own travels; and others make me author of books, to which I am wholly a ftranger.

I find likewise, that your printer hath been fo careless as to confound the times, and mistake the dates of my several voyages and returns; neither affigning the true year, nor the true month, nor 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 fent you fome corrections, which you may infert, if ever there fhould be a fecond edition; and yet I cannot ftand to them; but shall leave that matter to my judicious and candid readers to adjust it as they please. I hear fome of our fea-Yahoos find fault with my fealanguage, as not proper in many parts, nor now in use. I cannot help it. In my first voyages, while I was young, I was inftructed by the oldest mariners, and learned to fpeak as they did, But I have fince found that the feaYahoos 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 obferve, when any Yahoo comes from London out of curiosity to visit me