Page:Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships.djvu/59

CHAP. II a Bed prepared for me. Six hundred Beds of the common Measure were brought in Carriages, and worked up in my house; an hundred and fifty of their Beds sown together made up the Breadth and Length, and these were Four double, which however kept me but very indifferently from the Hardness of the Floor, that was of smooth Stone. By the same Computation they provided me with Sheets, Blankets, and Coverlets, tolerable enough for one who had been so long enured to Hardships as I.

the news of my arrival spread through the Kingdom, it brought prodigious numbers of rich, idle, and curious People to see me; so that the Villages were almost emptied, and great neglect of Tillage and Houshold Affairs must have ensued, if his Imperial Majesty had not provided, by several Proclamations and Orders of State, against this Inconveniency. He directed that those who had already beheld me, should return home, and not presume to come within Fifty yards of my House without License from Court; whereby the Secretaries of State got considerable Fees.

the mean time, the Emperor held frequent Councils to debate what course should be taken with me; and I was afterwards assured by a particular Friend, a Person of great Quality, who was looked upon to be as much in the Secret as any, that the Court was under many difficulties concerning me. They apprehended my breaking loose, that my Diet would be very expensive, and might cause a Famine. Sometimes they determined to starve me, or at least to shoot me in the face and hands with poisoned arrows, which would soon dispatch me: But again they considered, that the Stench of so large a carcase might produce a Plague in the Metropolis, and probably spread through the whole Kingdom. In the midst of these consultations, several Officers of the Army went to the door of the great Council-Chamber; and two of them being admitted, gave an account of my behaviour to the Six Criminals above-mentioned, which made so favourable an impression in the breast of his Majesty and the whole Board in my behalf, that an Imperial Commission was issued out,