We append a brief note on Jonathan Swift's unfinished "Account of the Court and Empire of Japan," first published twenty years after his death but written (according to Deane Swift, his second-cousin) in 1728, two years following Gulliver's Travels. Swift's most intriguing and significant use of Japan is of course in his Travels. His most oblique use of Japan is in this "Account." In it almost nothing refers to the actual Asiatic country: "Japan" provides a disguised way to describe corruptionin English politics under George I and at the accession of George II in 1727.
In some of his phrasing here Swift may possibly have taken hints from Engelbert Kaempfer's History of Japan. There are also what an Englishman might consider to be a few pretenses at oriental verisimilitude, as in "struck his forehead thrice against the table, as the custom is in Japan," and "sprangs" for a denomination of money -- not much different from the ritual performed before the Emperor of Lilliput, and the coins there called Sprugs. Reference is made to an imaginary "Japanese author." On the whole, though, the reader simply alters "Emperor of Japan" into "King of England"; "Eastern princes" into "European princes"; or "arbiter of Asia" into "arbiter of Europe."
The device of topical allegory is one that Swift had employed on a number of occasions in his political satire, several times with Greece or Rome as the disguise for England. The outrageous historical parallels in his comparison between "A Bill of ROMAN Gratitude" and "A Bill of BRITISH Gratitude" in Examiner 16, it is well known, hastened the downfall of Marlborough. Swift's first published book, directed against an imbalance of power maintained by the Tory party under William III, is entitled A Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions Between the Nobles and Commons in Athens and Rome. In this Discourse historical parallels are cited between Greek or Roman governmental situations and similar situations in England in 1701. "Pericles" is Charles Montagu, "Themistocles" is Edward Russell, and "Polyperchon" is John Churchill, later to become the Duke of Marlborough.
Political parties in England had altered their characteristics; and Swift had converted from the Whig he represented in A Discourse to become an important figure in the Tory government under Queen Anne and an intimate of the highest political figures. This change is reflected in the political satire in Gulliver's Travels of 1726, which proceeds with invented rather than with historical parallels. For instance, in Lilliput George I may be recognized in the behavior of the Emperor, who favors the Low-Heel party (Whigs) over the High Heels (Tories); and the rebellious heir to his throne, who attempts to placate both parties, suggests the future George II. Flimnap, the Lilliputian prime minister and Gulliver's most relentless enemy, equates with Walpole, who became head of the government in 1720.
This British history is repeated in a mock-Oriental setting in "An Account of the Court and Empire of Japan"; in 1728 Swift's intention was still to further the Tory cause by denigrating the motives and reputation of Sir Robert Walpole. But now George I had died and the Tories had expected both to regain the power they had held under Queen Anne and to see Walpole demoted.
The "Account" begins by accurately describing through its allegory how George I, although he was a great grandson of James I, was thoroughly German and had so little interest in British life, language, religion or politics that he spent every possible moment in Hanover, of which he was Elector; and it was indeed on the road back to Hanover that he died in 1727. George's death left the reins of government in the hands of Robert Walpole. The throne, however, was left to the prince, whom the king had despised. George II's first public act, after Walpole brought news of his father's death, was to relieve him of his duties and give them to Spencer Compton, Speaker of the House of Commons and Paymaster General. But Compton found himself unequal to writing the new king's first declaration to the Council. He foolishly turned the job back to Walpole, who was experienced in such matters. Thus Walpole, to the displeasure of Swift and other Tories, delivered the declaration and remained in office for ten more years -- a man of cool judgment and an effective speaker with a canny knowledge of how to manipulate his associates.
In his "Account of . . . Japan" Swift tells this story in disguise but goes on to make the new king respond to his minister's report on the state of the nation with seven probing questions, such as "Why the debts of the empire were so prodigiously advanced, in a peace of twelve years at home and abroad?" Swift then has the minister in nine lengthy paragraphs deliver a defense of the government he has headed, with specious explanations for the so-called good that issues from corruption in high places. Swift allows the minister (obviously meant for Walpole) to indict himself.
Here the "Account" breaks off incomplete. The king's inquiries and the minister's reply are surely an echo of one of the most telling passages in Gulliver's Travels, in which the Emperor of Brobdingnag poses a series of embarrassing questions about life, religion, and government in England and then, after Gulliver has tried to defend his "own dear native Country," the emperor witheringly pronounces that he "cannot but conclude the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth."
Though its strategy is clever, nothing in "An Account of. . .Japan" approaches the force of that passage from Gulliver's Travels. The best Swift can do here is in such uncomplicated, open irony as in the following excerpt which needs no gloss: "Sir, Hear not those who would most falsely, impiously, and maliciously insinuate, that your government can be carried on without that wholesome, necessary expedient, of sharing the public revenue with your faithful deserving senators. This, I know, my enemies are pleased to call bribery and corruption. Be it so: But I insist, that, without this bribery and corruption, the wheels of government will not turn, or at least they will be apt to take fire, like other wheels, unless they be greased at the proper times."
Names in the "Account" can be deciphered without puzzlement. "Regoge" is to be read as George; "Nena" as Anne; "Husiges" as Whigs; "Yortes" as Tories; "Tedsu" as Deuts (ch); "Nomtoc" as Compton, "Ramneh" as Hamner (Thomas Hamner, a Tory who had preceded Spencer Compton as Speaker); and -- of most importance -- "Lelop-Aw" as Walpole.
It is not known why Swift did not complete "An Account of the Court and Empire of Japan." Perhaps it was too patently libelous of great men to risk its publication. Swift's publishers and friends had been fined and jailed for printing some of his political satires. Edmund Burke once noted that such works as this by Swift, ridiculing the royal family and its ministers, "were the occasion of most of the other posthumous articles having been so long withheld from the publick." At any rate it was not until 1765 that Deane Swift printed the "Account," saying that these "Papers were rescued from the injuries of time and accident."
Tangential though it is, Swift's "Account" is one more intriguing item in his relationship with Japan. Overtly it parallels the section on ancient history in Kaempfer's text, copying the form but transferring all references quite specifically to a particular situation in England. The process in Gulliver's Travels took the opposite course, covertly incorporating Japan materials in reports of "imaginary lands" but keeping to historic references for Japanese episodes in a combination that has touch with the social scene in England but reaches out to universal meanings.