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Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745

"Gulliver's Travels"

His
imperial majesty spoke often to me, and I returned answers: but
neither of us could understand a syllable. There were several of
his priests and lawyers present (as I conjectured by their habits),
who were commanded to address themselves to me; and I spoke to them
in as many languages as I had the least smattering of, which were
High and Low Dutch, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Lingua
Franca, but all to no purpose. After about two hours the court
retired, and I was left with a strong guard, to prevent the
impertinence, and probably the malice of the rabble, who were very
impatient to crowd about me as near as they durst; and some of them
had the impudence to shoot their arrows at me, as I sat on the
ground by the door of my house, whereof one very narrowly missed my
left eye. But the colonel ordered six of the ringleaders to be
seized, and thought no punishment so proper as to deliver them
bound into my hands; which some of his soldiers accordingly did,
pushing them forward with the butt-ends of their pikes into my
reach.


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