There was great joy when Gulliver was seen hauling the vessels; and when he landed, the King was so pleased that on the spot he created him a Nardac, the highest honor that it was in his power to bestow.

His great success over the Blefuscans, however, turned out to be but the beginning of trouble for Gulliver.  The King was so puffed up by the victory that he formed plans for capturing in the same way the whole of the enemy’s ships of every kind.  And it was now his wish to crush Blefuscu utterly, and to make it nothing but a province depending on Lilliput.  Thus, he thought, he himself would then be monarch of the whole world.

In this scheme Gulliver refused to take any part, and he very plainly said that he would give no help in making slaves of the Blefuscans.  This refusal angered the King very much, and more than once he artfully brought the matter up at a State Council.  Now, several of the councilors, though they pretended to be Gulliver’s friends so long as he was in favor with the King, were really his secret enemies, and nothing pleased these persons better than to see that the King was no longer pleased with him.  So they did all in their power to nurse and increase the King’s anger, and to make him believe that Gulliver was a traitor.

About this time there came to Lilliput ambassadors from Blefuscu, suing for peace.  When a treaty had been made and signed (very greatly to the advantage of Lilliput), the Blefuscan ambassadors asked to see the Great Man Mountain, of whom they had heard so much, and they paid Gulliver a formal call.  After asking him to give them some proofs of his strength, they invited him to visit their Emperor, which Gulliver promised to do.

Accordingly, the next time that he met the King, he asked, as he was bound to do by the paper he had signed, for permission to leave the country for a time, in order to visit Blefuscu.  The King did not refuse, but his manner was so cold that Gulliver could not help noticing it.  Afterwards he learned from a friend that his enemies in the council had told the King lying tales of his meetings with the Blefuscan ambassadors, which had had the effect of still further rousing his anger.

It happened too, most unfortunately, at this time, that Gulliver had offended the Queen by a well-meant, but badly-managed, effort to do her a service, and thus he lost also her friendship.  But though he was now out of favor at court, he was still an object of great interest to every one.

V

GULLIVER’S ESCAPE FROM LILLIPUT AND RETURN TO ENGLAND

Gulliver had three hundred cooks to dress his food and these men, with their families, lived in small huts which had been built for them near his house.

He had made for himself a chair and a table.  On to this table it was his custom to lift twenty waiters, and these men then drew up by ropes and pulleys all his food, and his wine in casks, which one hundred other servants had in readiness on the ground.  Gulliver would often eat his meal with many hundreds of people looking on.