Political Characterization in 'Gulliver's Travels'
Author(s): J. A. Downie
Source: The Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 7 (1977), pp. 108-120
Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association
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Accessed: 27-01-2017 07:45 UTC
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Political Characterization in Gulliver's Travels
J. A. DOWNIE
University College of North Wales, Bangor
From the time of its publication onwards Gulliver's Travels has been subjected to
severe political analysis, and attempts have been made, with varying degrees of
ingenuity, to find consistent political characterization and a foolproof political
allegory. Sir Charles Firth's lecture on the political significance of Gulliver's Travels
has been superseded in more recent years by Arthur Case's explanation of political
allusions, especially in A Voyage to Lilliput1. Despite their inherent historical
inaccuracy and subsequent attempts to elucidate Swift's meaning in terms of the
little language he used in his Journal to Stella, and his undoubted fondness for non-
sense words, Case's views have gained some currency and remain unchallenged.
Irvin Ehrenpreis has said that 'there is not a great deal to alter in his foundations',
though he did make the important distinction between the actual events of 708-I5
and Swift's own highly personalized and distorted image of them.2 While Case
admits that the 'burden of proof lies on the shoulders of anyone who argues that
the political allegory is consistent' in Gulliver's Travels, these admirable sentiments
make no significant contribution to his subsequent efforts to convince the reader
of the rightness of his argument in favour of a fairly strict political characterization,
and too often we are obliged to be content with a platitudinous: 'It is hardly
necessary to labor the significance of the rest of the allegory'.3 No one has
questioned the identification of Flimnap as Walpole, the representation of the
Orders of the Garter, the Bath, and the Thistle by the three coloured silks, the
references to the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians, the high-heels and the low-
heels. But the problems of pinpointing a consistent allegory remain, and consider-
able difficulty obscures the characterization of Skyresh Bolgolam, of Reldresal,
and of Lord Munodi in A Voyage to Laputa. Can such characters be identified with
any certainty, and were they, indeed, meant to represent particular men? Is the
answer not merely one of reconciling the general satire of Gulliver's Travels with a
desire to narrow down Swift's design? Is there not a tendency to attribute a specific
aim to the darts with which he was liberally showering the contemporary political
scene when the real issue is more concerned with policies and measures, and not
men?
1 C. H. Firth, 'The Political Significance of Gulliver's Travels', Proceedings of the British Academy
(1919-I920), 237-59; Arthur E. Case, Four Essays on Gulliver's Travels (Princeton, New Jersey, 1950),
pp. 70-96.
2 Irvin Ehrenpreis, 'The Origins of Gulliver's Travels', PMLA, 72 (1957), 880-99 (p. 88i). A gauge
of the currency of Case's conclusions is the fact that they have been reprinted in full in both Discussions
of Jonathan Swift, edited by John Traugott (Boston, Massachusetts, I962), pp. 105-20, and Jonathan
Swift: A Critical Anthology, edited by Denis Donoghue (Harmondsworth, 1971), pp. 317-42. I should
like to thank Professor Pat Rogers for his advice during the preparation of this article. He is not
responsible for the conclusions reached, but his suggestions prevented a number of omissions.
3 Case, pp. 70, 89. Subsequent page references are given in the text within parentheses.
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J. A. DOWNIE
I
The careers of Oxford and Bolingbroke, writes Case, 'undoubtedly contribute
incidents to Gulliver's career'. 'Consistency can be obtained', he assumes, not
unreasonably, 'by supposing that Gulliver's career in Lilliput represents the joint
political fortunes of Oxford and Bolingbroke during the latter half of Queen Anne's
reign' (p. 70). Certainly it is likely that when Gulliver is housed in 'an ancient
Temple, esteemed to be the largest in the whole Kingdom', Oxford's two years in
the Tower of London from 1715 to 717 are meant to spring to mind, the presumed
deaths of the Princes in the Tower being analogous with the 'unnatural Murder'
which had 'polluted' the Temple 'some Years before'.' At the other end of the book,
Gulliver's flight to Blefuscu to escape the rumoured punishment about to break upon
him can be readily explained as an allusion to Bolingbroke's premature departure
for France and the court of James III at St Germain soon after the accession of
George I. Both the unsavoury means of putting out the fire in the royal apartments,
and the unorthodox capture of the Blefuscan fleet which put an end to the war
with as little ceremony as possible can be taken, quite correctly, as the ministry's
determined effort to end the War of the Spanish Succession as soon as was practicable after 1710. So far so good, and there are countless other incidents which bear
close scrutiny in this way. It is only when one forsakes the general for the particular
that difficulties occur.
Case was attempting something new when he claimed that from the vantage
point of the later chapters of A Voyage to Lilliput 'it is possible to extract a number of
probable allusions to events of the years I708-I710'. He felt that there was an
allegory here, one, moreover, which was 'exactly coincidental with Gulliver's
residence in Lilliput and Blefuscu', stemming from Harley's fall in 1708 and
leading up to his reinstatement at the head of the incoming ministry in 17I0
(p. 70). Unfortunately a close examination of Case's historical parallels does not
stand up. Harley's ouster did not, on its own, secure control of the cabinet for the
whigs, who were not 'led by Godolphin and Marlborough'. Gulliver may have
been 'pictured as having been caught off guard' when washed up on the Lilliputian
sands, but Harley was anything but a docile sacrifice to whig arrogance in February
1708, and he almost succeeded, to the utter amazement of observers, in separating
Marlborough from Godolphin, and in securing the Lord Treasurer's dismissal.
Swift accounted it 'the greatest piece of court skill that has been acted these many
years'.2 Case feels that Harley, at this time, was 'contemplating violence against
his enemies': his subsequent decision to persuade Queen Anne to allow him to
resign (for that was what happened) was, according to Case, based on the assump-
tion that 'submission [was] the more prudent course'. Referring to his later
treatment of the whigs, Case would have Harley regard this submission 'as a tacit
promise binding him in honor not to injure his captors even when it lies within his
1 Gulliver's Travels, p. 27 (quotations follow Herbert Davis's edition in The Prose Works of Jonathan
Swift, 14 vols (Oxford, 1939-68), Volume xi (1941; revised 1959). Subsequent page references are
included in the text where appropriate within parentheses). The 'temple' and the 'unnatural Murder'
have, of course, also been taken as references to the execution of Charles I in Westminster Hall, and
this is perhaps a measure of the ambiguity of Swift's alleged allegories.
2 The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, edited by Harold Williams, 5 vols (Oxford, I963-5), I, 71:
Swift to Archbishop King, 12 February 1707-8. For Harley's fall, see G. S. Holmes and W. A. Speck,
'The Fall of Harley in I708 Reconsidered', EHR, 79 (1965), 673-98.
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log
Political Characterization in 'Gulliver's Travels'
IIO
power to do so'. This, then, is Case's interpretation of the Ministerial Revolution
of 1710, and fundamentally ahistorical reasoning permits him to equate Gulliver's
actions on his release from his bonds with the character of the tory political
recovery. 'It is hardly necessary', he writes, 'to point out the parallel between this
conduct and that of the Tory leaders towards the Whigs' (p. 70).
Such an interpretation of Gulliver's initial situation on the shore of Lilliput is a
prime illustration of the dire straits into which literal, or in this case superliteral,
readings of A Voyage to Lilliput can lead us. Founded on a radical misunderstanding
of the structure of the Goldolphin ministry in 1708 and the circumstances surrounding Harley's fall from office, Case neither provides a moderately adequate
account of the true history of political events in England from 1708 to 17o0, nor
attempts to put forward an effective argument to show that Swift viewed Harley's
resignation and ultimate reinstatement at the head of the incoming moderate tory
administration in this way. Further, when assuming that the committee appointed
to draw up an inventory of Gulliver's possessions 'stands for the investigation by a
committee of Whig lords, of... William Gregg' (a clerk in Harley's office who had
been found guilty of treasonable correspondence with France), Case alleges that
Gulliver's own words on the subject are probably a conscious reflection of Harley's
innocence. His behaviour in 1708 is, in Case's view, paralleled by Gulliver's conduct
when asked to surrender his possessions. Gulliver, confident in his own behaviour
towards his tormentors, stares the Lilliputian King steadfastly in the eye, disregarding the troops who were prepared to resist any hostile action of their
adversary. To say this was strained would be classic understatement. There is
nothing in my reading of the story of Gulliver's first experiences in Lilliput to assign
to it particular events in the political history of 708 to 17 1 0. Wherever and whenever
Swift is wishing to call to mind actual political happenings in reference to Oxford
and Bolingbroke he limits his design to general allusions, and he concerns himself
with the Oxford ministry's struggle for peace from I7I0 onwards. Any other
interpretation abuses both history and Swift's own image of the Ministerial
Revolution.
The problem of topicality in Gulliver's Travels is paramount. Was Swift referring
specifically to the political events of the second half of the reign of Queen Anne ?
Or, as seems more likely, was he more concerned with the situation in the years
around 1720 ? Recently Pat Rogers andJ. M. Treadwell have independently argued
the case for placing A Voyage to Laputa firmly in the context of the South Sea
Bubble.1 The parallels to be found in A Voyage to Lilliput seem a little earlier, and
they relate, I feel, to the impeachments of Oxford and Bolingbroke. Gulliver's
release, if meant to be taken allegorically at all, corresponds with Oxford's release
from the Tower in 1717. Case would have it represent 'a series of political develop-
ments which culminated early in 17 I' (p. 72). This interpretation assumes, as
other commentators have done, that Skyresh Bolgolam characterizes the Earl of
Nottingham. For this to seem feasible, however, Case has telescoped the four years
of the Oxford ministry. 'Almost from the time of his accession to the chancellorship
[in August 7I10]', writes Case, Oxford 'had begun to lose the personal, though not
the political favor of the Queen'. Emphasizing Oxford's fondness for the bottle as
1 Pat Rogers, 'Gulliver and the Engineers', MLR, 70 (1975), 260-70; J. M. Treadwell, 'Jonathan
Swift: the Satirist as Projector', Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 17 (I975), 439-60.
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J. A. DOWNIE
III
the prime cause of his downfall, Case maintains that 'Queen Anne dispensed with
Oxford's services and vowed never to make use of them again' (pp. 75-6). In fact
the process of disintegration which eventually resulted in Oxford's dismissal began
only in November 1713 with the death of his favourite daughter. In August 1713
he routed Bolingbroke 'in the corridors of Kensington and Whitehall', whilst his
son succeeded in finalizing a marriage alliance with the richest heiress in England,
Lady Harriet Holles, daughter of his late ally, the Duke of Newcastle.1 In the
autumn his power was as great as it had ever been. His fall resulted only from his
fatal error in asking for the Dukedom to be conferred on his son and his subsequent
demoralization on his daughter's death, which precipitated an uncharacteristic
lack of self-control and led to his appearing before the Queen drunk, disorientated,
and utterly unfit for business in the course of I714. Reluctantly, Queen Anne
received his white staff of office four days before her own demise. One looks in vain
for evidence to support Case's statement that 'Anne had shown her displeasure at
Oxford's personal behavior toward her as early as 1712' (p. 89). As Geoffrey
Holmes observes, 'the first real breach in the unique relationship which Oxford
had enjoyed with Queen Anne from 1706' was when he asked for the Dukedom for
his son.2 It is surely not Queen Anne to whom Swift is referring in the episode of
the fire in the royal palace. The Queen of Lilliput's refusal to utilize those rooms
polluted by Gulliver's urine is meant to parallel not Anne's attitude to the Peace
of Utrecht, but the attitude of the Hanoverians. Queen Anne was pleased with
the outcome of the War of the Spanish Succession. She approved all the negotiations. Oxford's conduct in relation to the war was not the reason for his disgrace.
The tory ministry had burst into office on the crest of a tidal wave of war weariness.
There is no evidence to endorse Case's mistaken belief that Oxford and Bolingbroke
'could not negotiate openly with France . . . because the war was still generally
popular' (pp. 74-5). It most certainly was not. Only the whigs and financiers, the
stockjobbers whom Swift so loved to hate, were in favour of continuing the war to
the bitter end. The majority of the political nation nourished naturally tory
sentiments, and they were heartily sick of the war.3
In concluding the presentation of his analysis of A Voyage to Lilliput and its close
association with the events of I708-I715, Case writes: 'The strongest arguments in
favor of this interpretation . . . are its consistency and the exactness with which it
follows the chronology of the events which it symbolizes. Single incidents are often
open to more than one explanation: a series carries conviction in proportion to its
length' (p. 79). I believe that my illustration of the dangers of trying to dress
Swift's satire in too well-tailored a garb has shown not only that Case's analysis of
A Voyage to Lilliput is erroneous, but that it is downright unhistorical. Swift could
hardly have misinterpreted so wildly events in which he was himself concerned.
The allegory in A Voyage to Lilliput is a general one, centring on the peace concluded
by the Oxford ministry, and the subsequent impeachments of those who had had
1 See Geoffrey Holmes, 'Harley, St John and the Death of the Tory Party', in Britain after the
Glorious Revolution i689-I714, edited by Holmes (London, 1969), p. 225.
2 Holmes, pp. 225-6. Harley bitterly regretted his 'never enough to be lamented folly in mentioning
to her Majesty the titles'. HMC Portland, v, 466.
3 Ehrenpreis also points out Case's mistaken implications in relating the episode of the fire to
Oxford's difficulties with Queen Anne, but he believes that 'references to Bolingbroke (rather than
Oxford) control the fable'. Ehrenpreis, pp. 88I-3.
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II2
Political Characterization in 'Gulliver's Travels'
a hand in its architecture. Gulliver is a complex figure representing sometimes
Oxford, sometimes Bolingbroke, and, no doubt, occasionally Swift himself. And
this strange creature, Gulliver/Oxford/Bolingbroke/Swift, was, in certain instances,
meant to symbolize the fate of all three real men on the accession of George I.1
II
Turning to the actual Lilliputian characters described by Swift, one is struck
almost immediately by their inexactitude. Skyresh Bolgolam and Flimnap draw
up articles of impeachment against Gulliver 'in Conjunction with . . . Limtoc the
General, Lalcon the Chamberlain, and Balmuff the grand Justiciary' (p. 68). If
these officials were designed to symbolize their real counterparts in 1714 on the
accession of George I, then Marlborough, Shrewsbury, and Cowper must, as Case
suggests, be the men pointed at, though the identification of the second of these,
'a mild man who took no active part in the attack on the defeated ministry', is, he
admits, 'a little doubtful', and the substitution of Devonshire, the Lord Steward, is
advocated (p. 77).2 In fact in my view the names coined are meant to personify
not the particular holder of the office, but the office itself. H. D. Kelling, solving
Swift's alleged language game to his own satisfaction, transcribes Limtoc as millescottes, which he took as a passing reference to Marlborough's avarice.3 Perhaps so,
but a more satisfactory persona for the Duke is the character usually identified
with Nottingham, Skyresh Bolgolam himself.
The history of the identification of Nottingham as Skyresh Bolgolam is distinguished, but unconvincing. Based on Swift's reference to his 'morose and sour
Complection' (p. 42), conjuring up the contemporary nickname habitually applied
to Nottingham, that of 'Dismal', successive commentators have participated in
some amazing mental gymnastics to find data in A Voyage to Lilliput to support their
conclusions. Swift was none too friendly with Nottingham, but Nottingham was
never in the Admiralty during the period in question, while Bolgolam was Lord
High Admiral of Lilliput. References to the period when Nottingham did act as
first Lord of the Admiralty, from I68o to I684, seem forced, and so do similar ones
relating to his interest in naval affairs in the first half of the I69os. How are these
to be reconciled with Swift's categorical statement that Bolgolam was 'very much
in his Master's Confidence, and a Person well versed in Affairs' (p. 42) ? Nottingham
was Lord President of the Council under George I, but only until the aftermath of
the Fifteen rebellion. On 29 February 1716 he was dismissed. All attempts to label
Nottingham as a whig are vain. He was a High Tory. He gained office as a result
of his apostasy in December 17 I when he led the motion in the Lords for a
1 The imagery of impeachment plays a vital role in A Voyage to Lilliput. Edward Rosenheim Jr
makes out a good case for the Atterbury trial figuring in the satire of the first book. ('Swift and the
Atterbury Case', in The Augustan Milieu: Essays presented to Louis A. Landa, edited by H. K. Miller,
Eric Rothstein, and G. S. Rousseau (Oxford, 1970), pp. 174-204). While I am sure that the affair was,
like the Bubble and Wood's halfpence, always in the back of Swift's mind while he was writing
Gulliver's Travels, I still feel that the first book is concerned primarily with the impeachments of
Oxford and Bolingbroke, though of course the Atterbury case provided added incentive to his satire.
Still on the theme of impeachments, W. A. Speck, using the dates actually supplied by Swift for
Gulliver's sojourn in Lilliput, suggests that there might be a reference here to the impeachment of the
whig leaders in 1701, an event which precipitated Swift's Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions ... in
Athens and Rome, his first political tract. See W. A. Speck, Swift (London, 1969), p. I 2.
2 In fact Shrewsbury had been an integral part of the Oxford administration.
3 H. D. Kelling, 'Some Significant Names in Gullivers Travels', SP, 48 (1951), 761-8 (p. 765).
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J. A. DOWNIE
II3
declaration of 'No Peace without Spain' as a ruse to secure whig approval of an
Occasional Conformity bill. 'On [Harley's] rise to power as Chancellor of the
Exchequer', writes Case, with typical disregard of his dates, 'Nottingham proposed
in the House of Lords an amendment to the royal address ... an open attempt to
restrict the powers of the new Tory administration'. According to Case, 'Harley
and St John felt it prudent not to oppose this amendment, and it was consequently
carried' (pp. 72-3). It is to this, he feels, that Gulliver is referring when given the
conditions on which he is to receive his liberty: 'I SWORE and subscribed to
these Articles with great Chearfulness and Content, although some of them were
not so honourable as I could have wished; which proceeded wholly from the
Malice of Skyresh Bolgolam the High Admiral: Whereupon my Chains were
immediately unlocked, and I was at full Liberty' (p. 44). Once again Case is
abusing history. It was then almost eighteen months since the Oxford ministry had
come to power, and any deleterious effects of Nottingham's motion were overcome
by the creation of twelve peers to secure a government majority in the Lords.l
Gulliver is here alluding not to Nottingham's motion, but to the conditions upon
which Oxford was released from the Tower in I717. He was forbidden the court by
the express order of George I: compare this with the second condition offered
Gulliver, that 'He shall not presume to come into our Metropolis, without our
express Order' (p. 43). Nottingham, even if he had ever held any influence in the
councils of George I, did so no longer after I715, and Firth's characterization of
him as Bolgolam depends on the false assumption that Swift began writing A Voyage
to Lilliput in 1714.
In many ways it is possible to view Bolgolam as a symbol for those whigs who
were enemies of Oxford, Bolingbroke, and Swift in the last years of Anne's reign,
and who threatened to wreak vengeance under the Hanoverians. Certainly I feel
no doubt that Swift is concerned with the years 1714 to 1717 during the Lilliput
sequence, and the varied misfortunes of his two comrades-in-arms and himself on
Anne's death. But there are reasons for Swift's assuming that Marlborough would
resent most bitterly the treatment meted out to him by the Oxford ministry, for in
many ways the captain-general had suffered most at its hands. 'The duke of
Marlborough says, There is nothing he now desires so much as to contrive some
way how to soften Dr Swift', Stella was told in 1712, 'he is mistaken; for those things
that have been hardest against him were not written by me . . . although I love
him not'.2 Is this perhaps the same irony, conscious or unconscious, that prompted
Gulliver to stress that Bolgolam 'was pleased, without any Provocation, to be my
mortal Enemy' (p. 42) ? Swift had been hard on Marlborough, and he could well
have presumed that the Duke was the figurehead behind all subsequent moves
against Oxford during the impeachments. Misers are traditionally portrayed as
'sour' and 'morose'. It is a much smaller step to admiral from captain-general than
from Lord President of the Council.
In 195i, analysing Swift's language in Gulliver's Travels, H. D. Kelling came to
the conclusion that bol was French for mouthful, and that gola equated the Spanish
or Italian for gluttony. Together, then, Bolgolam was meant to suggest greed, and
1 For Swift's views on the creation of the twelve peers, see Journal to Stella, edited by Harold
Williams, 2 vols (Oxford, I948), II, 451.
2 Journal, II, 460: 8 January 1712.
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I I4
Political Characterization in 'Gulliver's Travels'
Marlborough's avarice was proverbial among contemporaries. It is curious that
two years later Paul Odell Clark tried to explain the names used in Gulliver's
Travels by examining Swift's inordinate fondness for language games. He criticized
Kelling's method, yet in the formula he himself concocted, based on the little
language, Bolgolam also translated into Marlborough.l This, in itself, proves
nothing, of course, but when taken in conjunction with other reasons for characterizing Marlborough, rather than Nottingham, as Skyresh Bolgolam, there seems
some basis for shortening the odds in the Duke's favour. There is no real evidence
to suggest that Nottingham was especially hostile to his fellow tories on the
accession of George I, while Swift could well have imagined Marlborough expressing extreme resentment against his apparent persecutors. Swift's own writings in
the cause of peace had indirectly censured Marlborough's conduct, and had
minimized his part in the victory over France. Is this not what Gulliver's friend
meant when he assured him that Bolgolam's 'Hatred', whatever its original cause,
had been 'much encreased' by the unorthodox victory over the Blefuscans (pp.
67-8) ? Certainly one of the main criticisms of Marlborough's generalship was that
he had deliberately prolonged the war for his own ends. It is interesting to note
that one of Swift's most biting satirical passages parallels this strategy:
so unmeasurable is the Ambition of Princes, that he seemed to think of nothing less than
reducing the whole Empire of Blefuscu into a Province, and governing it by a Viceroy; of
destroying the Big-Endian Exiles, and compelling that People to break the smaller End of
their Eggs; by which he would remain sole Monarch of the whole World. (p. 53)
Marlborough springs irresistibly to mind in such a context, and Gulliver's fatal
error was in persuading the King not to proceed with his plans, in much the same way
that the Oxford ministry had curtailed the overbearing influence of Marlborough
and his associates and had put an end to the war.
Case succeeds in confusing the characterization of Marlborough by assigning
to him, somewhat improbably, the role of adviser to Gulliver when the Lilliputian
privy council or cabinet is secretly planning punitive action (pp. 76-7). The mind
boggles at his reasons for assuming that the Duke could adequately fill the descrip-
tion of 'a considerable Person at Court (to whom I had been very serviceable at a
time when he lay under the highest Displeasure of his Imperial Majesty)' (p. 67).
When had Swift, Bolingbroke, or Oxford defended or assisted Marlborough while
he was vulnerable to attack either under Queen Anne, or, even less probably,
under George I? The problem of identifying Swift's (or Gulliver's) secret ally,
however, is great, and perhaps is tied in with the last remaining candidate for
characterization in A Voyage to Lilliput, the secretary Reldresal. It is generally
agreed that there are two possible aspirants for this distinguished position as
Swift's real-life friend: Townshend or Carteret, although Stanhope has been put
forward without much conviction. Carteret is Firth's choice, the most plausible
evidence in favour of the characterization being his obligation to issue a proclamation offering a reward of three hundred pounds for the discovery of the author of
the Drapier's Letters. Assuming that Carteret was uneasy about this, it is possible,
as Firth suggests, that this relates to Reldresal's lenity in advocating not Gulliver's
execution, but merely his blinding.2 Yet Swift is surely being ironical in playing
1 Kelling, pp. 733-4; Paul Odell Clark, 'A Gulliver Dictionary', SP, 50 (1953), 592-624 (pp. 604-5).
2 Firth, pp. 245-6.
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J. A. DOWNIE
I I5
up Reldresal's supposed friendship to such an extent. According to Gulliver's
adviser, he 'always approved himself your true Friend', but when called upon by
the King to express his opinion on the case, he 'justified the good Thoughts you
have of him'. He 'allowed [Gulliver's] Crimes to be great', and acknowledged his
friendship with the accused, which was 'so well known to the World', but nonetheless offered this solution:
That if his Majesty, in Consideration of your Services, and pursuant to his own merciful
Disposition, would please to spare your Life, and only give order to put out both your Eyes;
he humbly conceived, that by this Expedient, Justice might in some measure be satisfied,
and all the World would applaud the Lenity of the Emperor, as well as the fair and generous
Proceedings of those who have the Honour to be his Counsellors. (p. 70)
Some justice! And Reldresal was clearly some friend to have in need. Case is
unconsciously almost as ironical as Swift is consciously so, in basing his belief that
Townshend is Reldresal on an unsubstantiated statement that 'the Tory leaders
at first regarded [him] as a friend at court after their fall' (p. 78). Yet Townshend
surely is the man pointed at when Swift refers to Reldresal as 'the second after the
Treasurer'. The special relationship enjoyed by Walpole and Townshend until
the late I720s is too well known to need comment here, and seems to form the basis
of Gulliver's observation that 'the rest of the great Officers are much upon a par'
(p. 39). Using Swift's little language, Clark also concluded that Reldresal should
be translated as Townshend.1 Firth's contention that Carteret 'stood so high in the
King's favour that he might fairly be described as the second man in the Govern-
ment' is, I feel, stretching a point.2 Although Townshend as Reldresal still leaves
the problem of why Swift should have considered him any sort of ally in the first
place (was he merely being ironic to cause problems of identification for contemporaries?), the characterization does fulfil the essential requirements of
Gulliver's description. Swift's relations with Carteret have similarly not been
unravelled in any detail, though it has been asserted that some sort of contact did
exist. In view of this it might not be far wrong to suggest Carteret as his secret
adviser. Certainly Swift escaped the consequences of the Drapier's Letters despite the
reward offered for his discovery. Carteret's attempt to trace the author appears to
have been pursued without much enthusiasm.
'For true No-meaning puzzles more than Wit', wrote Pope in the Epistle to a
Lady (1. I 4), when the sentiment was particularly apt in view of attempts to pin
down the elusive Timon. Looking at A Voyage to Lilliput as a whole one wonders
how much of this maxim rubbed off on Swift. In most cases the hints at character-
ization are vague, and often contradictory, and this appears to have been deliberate.
When Swift wished to make his mark he left no reasonable doubt who his target
was: when he was hoping merely to tease he drew his alleged parallels with edges
that were purposely undefined; a suggestion sufficient to indict Nottingham as
Bolgolam here, an ambiguous clue to an obscure historical allegory there. But the
effect he tried to give was one of confusion, and it is a measure of his success that
such far-fetched readings of A Voyage to Lilliput exist.
Clark, p. 604.
2 Firth, p. 246.
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Political Characterization in 'Gulliver's Travels'
III
Recently the topicality of Gulliver's Travels has been highlighted by an examin
of A Voyage to Laputa. Pat Rogers has emphasized the central position of the S
Sea Bubble, while J. M. Treadwell correctly takes Case to task for asserting
Munodi's mill was meant to represent the inauguration of the South Sea Compa
in 17 I. Gulliver was more than usually exact in his dating of the building
mill: Treadwell observes that, as Swift was writing in I726, 'about seven
ago' refers not to the setting up of the Company but to the Bubble itself,
began to inflate in 1719.1 This leads us to a secondary consideration; the charac
of Lord Munodi himself. Case would have Munodi to be not Middleton (F
choice), or even Bolingbroke, but Harley, who was responsible for the foun
of the South Sea scheme. This is based on Gulliver's account that Munodi was 'a
Person of the first Rank, and had been some Years Governor of Lagado; but by a
Cabal of Ministers was discharged for Insufficiency' (p. I75). Case translates
Munodi as 'mundum odi' (I hate the world) and sees in this Oxford's retirement
from politics after his release from the Tower in 1717.
While it is important to grasp the central position of the Bubble in the satire of
A Voyage to Laputa, it is possible that Munodi's mill was not meant to represent the
South Sea Company at all. Treadwell steers clear of the problem of whether or not
Munodi was Harley. I can find little justification in such an identification. The
establishment of the South Sea project was not Harley's sole venture in a world in
which he was totally unversed, as Case would imply (pp. 87-9). The change of
government in 17I0 was only effected in the face of whig attempts to destroy the
credit of the incoming ministry by precipitating a financial crisis. Harley was one
of the few tories who understood the workings of the city, and he had extensive
contacts throughout the ranks of the monied men. The establishment of the South
Sea Company in 17 11 was effectively the linch-pin of the arrangement he had been
trying to reach with the financiers, whose proclivities were usually whig.2 Nor
indeed was the South Sea scheme the only one Harley had been involved in, and
Swift certainly knew this. In the I69os the National Land Bank, backed by Harley,
almost succeeded in taking over from the whig-orientated Bank of England as the
principal source of public credit.3 Throughout his career Harley was well acquainted
with financial problems. He was, after all, Lord Treasurer. Is it likely, then, that
Swift would have emphasized that Munodi made only one experiment of this
kind? Furthermore Harley was at the height of his power in May 1711 when the
negotiations concerning the South Sea Company were in full swing: he was
appointed Lord Treasurer, and elevated to the peerage as Earl of Oxford. This
hardly tallies with Munodi's revelation that when he agreed to the building of the
mill he was 'then not very well with the Court' (p. I78).
In this case I feel Firth's characterization was justified, and that the mill refers
not to the Bubble, but to one of Swift's most potent bogeys, Wood's halfpence. As
Lord Chancellor of Ireland Middleton had stood out against Wood's patent. He
caused Walpole's displeasure and was threatened with dismissal. 'Whatever the
1 Treadwell, p. 454.
2 See, on this question, B. W. Hill, 'The Change of Government and the "Loss of the City",
1710-I711', Economic History Review, 24 (1971), 395-411.
3 See Dennis Rubini, 'Politics and the Battle for the Banks', EHR, 85 (1970), 693-714.
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J. A. DOWNIE
II7
event may be', he wrote to his brother, 'I have the comfort to know that I fall a
sacrifice to the opposition I gave to Wood's Halfpence, and I had rather fall for
these with my country'.' Bearing this hypothesis in mind, let us turn once again to
the description of Munodi's mill:
he had a very convenient Mill within Half a Mile of his House, turned by a Current from a
large River, and sufficient for his own Family as well as a great Number of his Tenants ...
about seven Years ago, a Club of those Projectors came to him with Proposals to destroy this
Mill, and build another on the Side of that Mountain, on the long Ridge whereof a long
Canal must be cut for a Repository of Water, to be conveyed up by Pipes and Engines to
supply the Mill: Because the Wind and Air upon a Height agitated the Water, and thereby
made it fitter for Motion. (pp. 177-8)
The projecting terminology is obviously deliberate, but more significant is the use
of the word mill. This conjures up images of milled money and the minting process
itself. Swift's main complaint in practical terms about Wood's halfpence was that
for many years the minting of milled coin had been authorized by the Lord
Chancellors of Ireland in sufficient quantities when needed without flooding the
market with money. Ensuring by moderate measures that there was no real
scarcity of coin, the Lord Chancellor (Munodi) had minted enough money to
cater for the requirements of the English population of Ireland (his own family)
and the Irish themselves (his tenants). Now, interfering with this happy state of
affairs, money was to be minted in England to use in Ireland, and in quantities
that threatened to result in an excess of small coins, and this adverse step is surely
hinted at when the mill is under discussion.
The supposition that Middleton is Swift's hero Munodi is supported by his
advice 'to consult annals and compare dates'. 1723 was the peak of Middleton's
opposition to Wood's patent, when he had to give way to Walpole. Two years
later the government revoked the earlier decision and cancelled Wood's patent.
Is there a parallel here between Middleton's conduct and that of Munodi? If
Lagado is meant to symbolize Ireland, then Munodi's governorship could be the
Lord Chancellorship. According to Gulliver, Munodi, 'pressed by many of his
Friends . . . complyed with the Proposal; and after employing an Hundred Men
for two Years, the Work miscarryed, the Projectors went off, laying the Blame
intirely upon him' (p. 178). Here, apparently, are the two years between 1723 and
1725 during which Wood's patent was operational. Perhaps the allegory is not
consistent, but when the mill is under discussion it would appear that Munodi is
to be identified as Middleton, and this suggests that Swift was to some extent
concentrating on Irish affairs in the much more fragmented Voyage to Laputa.
There were, then, two main strands to the satire in the third book: one, when
projecting is under fire, relates to the whole South Sea Bubble syndrome; the
other to Ireland and the symbolic conflict over Wood's halfpence, with which
Swift had been preoccupied in the Drapier's Letters.
1 28 December I723, cited in Firth, pp. 257-8. Clark, p. 614, translates Munodi as Middleton,
though of course all his translations may well have been inordinately influenced by the suggestions of
Firth and Case. The dangers of playing language games are well illustrated by Marjorie Buckley's
article, 'Key to the Language of the Houyhnhnms in Gulliver's Travels', in Fair Liberty Was all His
Cry: A Tercentenary Tribute to Jonathan Swift i667-1745, edited by A. Norman Jeffares (London, 1967),
pp. 270-8. If this is not a parody of work of this genre on the language of Gulliver's Travels, and there
is no overt indication that it is, then it certainly reads as one.
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II8
Political Characterization in 'Gulliver's Travels'
IV
The most potent and deliberate Swiftian satire on topical politics is made not in
A Voyage to Lilliput, but in the unduly neglected Voyage to Brobdingnag. Gulliver's
conversations with the King are the heart of Swift's political satire in Gulliver's
Travels and they justify the relevance of Augustan satire to modern readers who
are quite unfamiliar with contemporary figures and politics. In A Voyage to
Brobdingnag Swift adopts the old 'Country' maxim of attacking measures not
men, and he rehearses 'Country' ideology in opposition to Walpole and all he
stood for. Swift's politics have been complicated unnecessarily by his apparent
change of party in 171O. W. A. Speck has put forward a convincing argument to
show that Swift, like Harley, 'split tickets' on different issues.1 The complicating
factor in the political psychology of both men was their stance on religious matters
and their unequivocal support for the Church of England. This ostensibly tory
outlook was tempered by an otherwise thoroughgoing 'Country' attitude to
politics. 'Country' theory owed much to the doctrines of Harrington, though they
were subjected to considerable deliberate distortion to bolster a belief (which,
incidentally, Harrington did not share) in an 'ancient constitution'. The essential
manifestation of 'Country' theory was a doctrine in which 'the balance of the
constitution depended on the complete separation of Parliament and administration': 'It was for the Crown to govern, and for Parliament to exercise a jealous
surveillance of government; "corruption" would follow if the Crown discovered
any means at all of attaching members of Parliament in the pursuit of its business'.2
It was precisely Walpole's role as arch-corrupter of parliaments that Swift sought
to censure most vehemently. Placemen influenced debates, pensions were given
to members of parliament to keep them on the side of the court. Walpole owed his
long tenure of office to his success in buying off potential critics of his administration. Even the revival of the Order of the Bath, satirized in A Voyage to Lilliput,
was to provide 'jobs for the boys' when no more places were available for disposal.
To Swift this was anathema. The potent symbol of a standing army, 'a bogey
intended for Country gentlemen', was used to portray the various features of a
corrupt parliament. Xenophobic Country politicians called for the use of the fleet
as the main defensive arm, and reliance on a militia for land warfare.3 They saw
no reason for Britain to interfere in international affairs and preferred a policy of
isolation. Somewhat ironically, in view of his rivalry with Harley in the last years
of Queen Anne, Bolingbroke, in the I72os, was attempting to form an opposition
party in parliament on the same lines as Harley's 'New Country Party' of the
1 W. A. Speck, 'Swift's Politics', [Dublin] University Review, 4 (I967), 53-71 (p. 67).
2 J. G. A. Pocock, 'Machiavelli, Harrington, and English Political Ideologies in the Eighteenth
Century', William amd Mary Quarterly, 22 (I965), 549-83 (pp. 57I, 577).
3 See Pocock, p. 563. Ehrenpreis sees much in the King of Brobdingnag's views to 'trace themes
back' to the works of Sir William Temple, though he stresses that the King is not a portrait of Temple.
In fact the King's views rehearsed 'Country' theory. This is clinched by the exposition of the virtues
of a militia over and above a mercenary standing army. 'What if the King of Brobdingnag did dislike
armies and had no use for them?', writes Ehrenpreis, 'He nevertheless possessed a militia of two
hundred thousand men; and all of Gulliver's apologizing does not convince me that Swift put that
army in for any other reason than to enhance the giant king's awfulness at the expense of his coherence'
(Ehrenpreis, p. 899). This completely misses the point of the King's emphasis on a militia, the same
efficient militia that Harrington admired as the basis of the Roman republic, and not a standing
army. My own view is closer to that of Myrddin Jones, 'Swift, Harrington and Corruption in
England', PQ, 54 (I974), 59-70.
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J. A. DOWNIE
II9
69gos. All malcontents were to be embraced under the convenient bla
'Country' ideology to provide effective opposition to Walpole. Swift was in
accord with this, and it is in this context that the satire of A Voyage to Brob
should be examined.
In the second book the personalized wit of the first gives way to an overtly comic
but ultimately very serious indictment of Walpole's system of government (which
again comes to light in the allegory of Atterbury's arrest and trial on the testimony
of government spies in Book II (pp. 191-2)). The most precise formulation,
however, occurs in Gulliver's dialogue with the King of Brobdingnag, the con-
sistent feature of which is a desire to belittle Walpole's power by the stress on human
insignificance alongside the Brobdingnagians, and the basis for the King's unfavourable opinion of men as 'the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin
that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth' (p. 132) runs
through the whole gamut of 'Country' grievances. Dealing first with parliament,
Swift's irony is at once apparent in Gulliver's account of the House of Lords, 'the
Ornament and Bulwark of the Kingdom'. From the Lords, Swift turns to the
Commons, 'all principal Gentlemen, freely picked and culled out by the People
themselves, for their great Abilities, and Love of their Country' (p. 128). The
emphasis on the word freely in view of Walpole's blatantly corrupt elections was
more than sufficient to serve as a handle for the King of Brobdingnag, in conjunction with Walpole's creation of peers for political reasons:
What Course [he asked] was taken to supply that Assembly, when any noble Family became
extinct. What Qualifications were necessary in those who are to be created new Lords:
Whether the Humour of the Prince, a Sum of Money to a Court-Lady, or a Prime Minister;
or a Design of strengthening a Party opposite to the publick Interest, ever happened to be
Motives in those Advancements... HE then desired to know, what Arts were practised in
electing those whom I called Commoners. Whether, a Stranger with a strong Purse might
not influence the vulgar Voters to chuse him before their own Landlord, or the most
considerable Gentleman in the Neighbourhood. How it came to pass, that People were so
violently bent upon getting into this Assembly, which I allowed to be a great Trouble and
Expence, often to the Ruin of their Families, without any Salary or Pension: Because this
appeared such an exalted Strain of Virtue and publick Spirit, that his Majesty seemed to
doubt it might possibly not be always sincere: And he desired to know, whether such
zealous Gentlemen could have any Views of refunding themselves for the Charges and
Trouble they were at, by sacrificing the publick Good to the Designs of a weak and vicious
Prince, in Conjunction with a corrupted Ministry.
This, in the guise of a simple critique of political standards, was a full-blooded
attack on the Walpolean administration. Gulliver proceeded to provoke the King's
queries on national debt, on foreign policy, and on the army:
HE fell next upon the Management of our Treasury; and said, he thought my Memory had
failed me, because I computed our Taxes at about five or six Millions a Year; and when I
came to mention the Issues, he found they sometimes amounted to more than double... if
what I told him were true, he was still at a Loss how a Kingdom could run out of its Estate
like a private Person. He asked me, who were our Creditors ? and, where we found Money to
pay them? He wondered to hear me talk of such chargeable and extensive Wars; that,
certainly we must be a quarrelsome People, or live among very bad Neighbours; and that
our Generals must needs be richer than our Kings. He asked, what Business we had out o
our own Islands, unless upon the Score of Trade or Treaty, or to defend the Coasts with ou
Fleet. Above all, he was amazed to hear me talk of a mercenary standing Army in the Mids
of Peace, and among a free People. He said, if we were governed by our own Consent in the
Persons of our Representatives, he could not imagine of whom we were afraid, or agains
whom we were to fight; and would hear my Opinion, whether a private Man's House might
10
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I20
Political Characterization in 'Gulliver's Travels'
not better be defended by himself, his Children, and Family; than by half a Dozen Rascals
picked up at a Venture in the Streets, for small Wages, who might get an Hundred Times
more by cutting their Throats. (pp. 129-31)
Of course it is a truism that Swift was satirizing British politics in A Voyage to
Brobdingnag, but the allegory is, though concise, the most consistent in the work in
its assault on Walpole's political morality and the methods by which he achieved
and maintained power. The queries voiced by the King of Brobdingnag amount
to a 'Country' manifesto: these were the abuses and anomalies Swift sought to
mend. Here Swift's own views are voiced through the vehicle of the King, in
competition with no one, and evading the possible confusion of using Gulliver as
his medium. When Swift requires his political characterization to be recognized
and understood he leaves no room for doubt in the identification. Otherwise he
almost certainly meant to tease, playing word games for the edification of an
audience of one. Swift's genuine political message figures as a cameo in the more
general canvas of Brobdingnag: the fact that his most precisely formulated political
grievances are aired in this manner may indicate how little we need concern ourselves with disputing the characterization of Limtoc, and free us from the subsequent
dangers of historical inaccuracy. I would like to see Gulliver's Travels emancipated
from arguments over political content, for the sake of the wider social satire. Swift
expected that his 'Travells' would 'wonderfully mend the World'.' It is the timeless
quality of social, not political, satire that makes the work relevant to the modern
reader. Taken to its logical conclusion this argument assumes that Bolgolam,
Reldresal, Munodi, even Flimnap, become types, symbols, not actual personalities,
and that Gulliver's Travels is more readily digested in this way.
1 Correspondence, in, 87: Swift to Ford, 14 August 1725.
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