tory of European exploitation of the New World: the Europeans "have made conquests and settled colonies in very distant regions, the inhabitants of which they look upon as barbarous, though in simplicity of manners, probity, and temperance superior to themselves; and seem to think they have a right to treat them as passion, interest, or caprice shall direct, without much regard to the rule of justice or humanity; they have carried this imaginary sovereignty so far that they have sometimes proceeded to rapine, bloodshed, and desolation." The British record in North America is not spared: "When any of their people have forfeited the rights of society, by robberies, seditions, or other crimes," they are transported to America, "undoubtedly very much to the propagation of knowledge and virtue." These indictments Johnson was to repeat many times in his later writings. He concludes his account with a hair-raising description of how the Lilliputians, enraged by the corruptions of government in the time of Lemuel senior, "set fire to the palace" of the emperor, "and buried the whole royal family in its ruins," together with the evil ministers who had fled there for protection. This was fifty years before the storming of the Bastille, and it is noteworthy that the implied threat is not only against Walpole and his associates but against the king he served, George II. The Lilliputian debates occupied much of the Gentleman's space from 1738 to 1745 (Walpole was forced to resign in 1742, but an unsuccessful attempt to impeach him continued beyond that time). All the debates that appeared between July 1741 and ...
