When I had for some time entertained their excellencies, to their
infinite satisfaction and surprise, I desired they would do me the
honour to present my most humble respects to the emperor their
master, the renown of whose virtues had so justly filled the whole
world with admiration, and whose royal person I resolved to attend,
before I returned to my own country. Accordingly, the next time I
had the honour to see our emperor, I desired his general license to
wait on the Blefuscudian monarch, which he was pleased to grant me,
as I could perceive, in a very cold manner; but could not guess the
reason, till I had a whisper from a certain person, "that Flimnap
and Bolgolam had represented my intercourse with those ambassadors
as a mark of disaffection;" from which I am sure my heart was
wholly free. And this was the first time I began to conceive some
imperfect idea of courts and ministers.

It is to be observed, that these ambassadors spoke to me, by an
interpreter, the languages of both empires differing as much from
each other as any two in Europe, and each nation priding itself
upon the antiquity, beauty, and energy of their own tongue, with an
avowed contempt for that of their neighbour; yet our emperor,
standing upon the advantage he had got by the seizure of their
fleet, obliged them to deliver their credentials, and make their
speech, in the Lilliputian tongue. And it must be confessed, that
from the great intercourse of trade and commerce between both
realms, from the continual reception of exiles which is mutual
among them, and from the custom, in each empire, to send their
young nobility and richer gentry to the other, in order to polish
themselves by seeing the world, and understanding men and manners;
there are few persons of distinction, or merchants, or seamen, who