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The Voyage of Captain Popanilla

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> The Voyage of Captain Popanilla




After passing his days in this manner for about a fortnight, Popanilla
perfectly recovered from his dyspepsia; and Skindeep's wound having now
healed, he retired with regret from this healthy climate. He took
advantage of the leisure moment which was afforded during the sail to
inquire the reason of the disturbed state of this interesting country.
He was told that it was in consequence of the majority of the
inhabitants persisting in importing their own pine-apples.



CHAPTER 16


On his return to Hubbabub, the Chevalier de Fantaisie found the city in
the greatest confusion. The military were marshalled in all directions;
the streets were lined with field-pieces; no one was abroad; all the
shops were shut. Although not a single vehicle was visible, Popanilla's
progress was slow, from the quantity of shells of all kinds which choked
up the public way. When he arrived at his hotel he found that all the
windows were broken. He entered, and his landlord immediately presented
him with his bill. As the landlord was pressing, and as Popanilla
wished for an opportunity of showing his confidence in Skindeep's
friendship, he requested him to pay the amount. Skindeep sent a
messenger immediately to his banker, deeming an ambassador almost as
good security as a nation, which we all know to be the very best.

This little arrangement being concluded, the landlord resumed his usual
civility. He informed the travellers that the whole island was in a
state of the greatest commotion, and that martial law universally
prevailed. He said that this disturbance was occasioned by the return
of the expedition destined to the Isle of Fantaisie. It appeared, from
his account, that after sailing about from New Guinea to New Holland,
the expedition had been utterly unable not only to reach their new
customers, but even to obtain the slightest intelligence of their
locality. No such place as Fantaisie was known at Ceylon. Sumatra gave
information equally unsatisfactory. Java shook its head. Celebes
conceived the inquirers were jesting. The Philippine Isles offered to
accommodate them with spices, but could assist them in no other way.
Had it not been too hot at Borneo, they would have fairly laughed
outright. The Maldives and the Moluccas, the Luccadives and the
Andamans, were nearly as impertinent. The five hundred ships and the
judiciously-assorted cargo were therefore under the necessity of
returning home.

No sooner, however, had they reached Vraibleusia than the markets were
immediately glutted with the unsold goods. All the manufacturers, who
had been working day and night in preparing for the next expedition,
were instantly thrown out of employ. A run commenced on the Government
Bank. That institution perceived too late that the issues of pink
shells had been too unrestricted. As the Emperor of the East had all
the gold, the Government Bank only protected itself from failure by
bayoneting its creditors. The manufacturers, who were starving,
consoled themselves for the absence of food by breaking all the windows
in the country with the discarded shells. Every tradesman failed. The
shipping interest advertised two or three fleets for firewood. Riots
were universal. The Aboriginal was attacked on all sides, and made so
stout a resistance, and broke so many cudgels on the backs of his
assailants, that it was supposed he would be finally exhausted by his
own exertions. The public funds sunk ten per cent. daily. All the
Millionaires crashed. In a word, dismay, disorganisation, despair,
pervaded in all directions the wisest, the greatest, and the richest
nation in the world. The master of the hotel added, with an air of
becoming embarrassment, that, had not his Excellency been fortunately
absent, he probably would not have had the pleasure of detailing to him
this little narrative; that he had often been inquired for by the
populace at his old balcony; and that a crowd had perpetually surrounded
the house till within the last day, when a report had got about that his
Excellency had turned into steam and disappeared. He added that
caricatures of his Highness might be procured in any shop, and his
account of his voyage obtained at less than half-price.

'Ah!' said Popanilla, in a tone of great anguish, 'and all this from
losing a lock of hair!'

At this moment the messenger whom Skindeep had despatched returned, and
informed him with great regret that his banker, to whom he had entrusted
his whole fortune, had been so unlucky as to stop payment during his
absence. It was expected, however, that when his stud was sold a
respectable dividend might be realised. This was the personage of
prepossessing appearance who had presented Popanilla with a perpetual
ticket to his picture gallery. On examining the banker's accounts, it
was discovered that his chief loss had been incurred by supporting that
competition establishment where purses were bought full of crowns.

In spite of his own misfortunes, Popanilla hastened to console his
friend. He explained to him that things were not quite so bad as they
appeared; that society consisted of two classes, those who laboured, and
those who paid the labourers; that each class was equally useful,
because, if there were none to pay, the labourers would not be
remunerated, and if there were none to labour, the payers would not be
accommodated; that Skindeep might still rank in one of these classes;
that he might therefore still be a useful member of society; that, if he
were useful, he must therefore be good; and that, if he were good, he
must therefore be happy; because happiness is the consequence of
assisting the beneficial development of the ameliorating principles of
the social action.

As he was speaking, two gentlemen in blue, with red waistcoats, entered
the chamber and seized Popanilla by the collar. The Vraibleusian
Government, which is so famous for its interpretation of National Law,
had arrested the Ambassador for high treason.



CHAPTER 17


A prison conveyed the most lugubrious ideas to the mind of the unhappy
Plenipotentiary; and shut up in a hackney-coach, with a man on each side
of him with a most gloomy conceptions of overwhelming fetters, black
bread, and green water. He arrived at the principal gaol in Hubbabub.
He was ushered into an elegantly furnished apartment, with French sash
windows and a piano. Its lofty walls were entirely hung with a fanciful
paper, which represented a Tuscan vineyard; the ceiling was covered with
sky and clouds; roses were in abundance; and the windows, though well
secured, excited no jarring associations in the mind of the individual
they illumined, protected, as they were, by polished bars of cut steel.
This retreat had been fitted up by a poetical politician, who had
recently been confined for declaring that the Statue was an old idol
originally imported from the Sandwich Isles. Taking up a brilliantly
bound volume which reposed upon a rosewood table, Popanilla recited
aloud a sonnet to Liberty; but the account given of the goddess by the
bard was so confused, and he seemed so little acquainted with his
subject, that the reader began to suspect it was an effusion of the
gaoler.

Next to being a Plenipotentiary, Popanilla preferred being a prisoner.
His daily meals consisted of every delicacy in season: a marble bath was
ever at his service; a billiard-room and dumb-bells always ready; and
his old friends, the most eminent physician and the most celebrated
practitioner in Hubbabub, called upon him daily to feel his pulse and
look at his tongue. These attentions authorised a hope that he might
yet again be an Ambassador, that his native land might still be
discovered, and its resources still be developed: but when his gaoler
told him that the rest of the prisoners were treated in a manner equally
indulgent, because the Vraibleusians are the most humane people in the
world, Popanilla's spirits became somewhat depressed.

He was greatly consoled, however, by a daily visit from a body of the
most beautiful, the most accomplished, and the most virtuous females in
Hubbabub, who tasted his food to see that his cook did his duty,
recommended him a plentiful use of pine-apple well peppered, and made
him a present of a very handsome shirt, with worked frills and ruffles,
to be hanged in. This enchanting committee generally confined their
attentions to murderers and other victims of the passions, who were
deserted in their hour of need by the rest of the society they had
outraged; but Popanilla, being a foreigner, a Prince, and a
Plenipotentiary, and not ill-looking, naturally attracted a great deal
of notice from those who desire the amelioration of their species.

Popanilla was so pleased with his mode of life, and had acquired such a
taste for poetry, pin-apples, and pepper since he had ceased to be an
active member of society, that he applied to have his trial postponed,
on the ground of the prejudice which had been excited against him by the
public press. As his trial was at present inconvenient to the
Government, the postponement was allowed on these grounds.

In the meantime, the public agitation was subsiding. The nation
reconciled itself to the revolution in its fortunes. The ci-devant
millionaires were busied with retrenchment; the Government engaged in
sweeping in as many pink shells as were lying about the country; the
mechanics contrived to live upon chalk and sea-weed; and as the
Aboriginal would not give his corn away gratis, the Vraibleusians
determined to give up bread. The intellectual part of the nation were
intently interested in discovering the cause of the National Distress.
One of the philosophers said that it might all be traced to the effects
of a war in which the Vraibleusians had engaged about a century before.
Another showed that it was altogether clearly ascribable to the
pernicious custom of issuing pink shells; but if, instead of this mode
of representing wealth, they had had recourse to blue shells, the nation
would now have advanced to a state of prosperity which it had never yet
reached. A third demonstrated to the satisfaction of himself and his
immediate circle that it was all owing to the Statue having recently
been repaired with silver instead of iron. The public were unable to
decide between these conflicting opinions; but they were still more
desirous of finding out a remedy for the evil than the cause of it.

An eloquent and philosophical writer, who entertains consolatory
opinions of human nature, has recently told us that 'it is in the nature
of things that the intellectual wants of society should be supplied.
Whenever the man is required invariably the man will appear.' So it
happened in the present instance. A public instructor jumped up in the
person of Mr. Flummery Flam, the least insinuating and the least
plausible personage that ever performed the easy task of gulling a
nation. His manners were vulgar, his voice was sharp, and his language
almost unintelligible. Flummery Flam was a provisional optimist. He
maintained that everything would be for the best, if the nation would
only follow his advice. He told the Vraibleusians that the present
universal and overwhelming distress was all and entirely and merely to
be ascribed to 'a slight over-trading,' and that all that was required
to set everything right again was 'a little time.' He showed that this
over-trading and every other injudicious act that had ever been
committed were entirely to be ascribed to the nation being imbued with
erroneous and imperfect ideas of the nature of Demand and Supply. He
proved to them that if a tradesman cannot find customers his goods will
generally stay upon his own hands. He explained to the Aboriginal the
meaning of rent; to the mechanics the nature of wages; to the
manufacturers the signification of profits. He recommended that a large
edition of his own work should be printed at the public expense and sold
for his private profit. Finally, he explained how immediate, though
temporary, relief would be afforded to the State by the encouragement of
EMIGRATION.

The Vraibleusians began to recover their spirits. The Government had
the highest confidence in Flummery Flam, because Flummery Flam served to
divert the public thoughts. By his direction lectures were instituted
at the corner of every street, to instil the right principles of
politics into the mind of the great body of the people. Every person,
from the Managers of the Statue down to the chalk-chewing mechanics,
attended lectures on Flummery-Flammism. The Vraibleusians suddenly
discovered that it was the great object of a nation not to be the most
powerful, or the richest, or the best, or the wisest, but to be the most
Flummery-Flammistical.



CHAPTER 18


The day fixed for Popanilla's trial was at hand. The Prince was not
unprepared for the meeting. For some weeks before the appointed day he
had been deeply studying the published speeches of the greatest
rhetorician that flourished at the Vraibleusian bar. He was so inflated
with their style that he nearly blew down the gaoler every morning when
he rehearsed a passage before him. Indeed, Popanilla looked forward to
his trial with feelings of anticipated triumph. He determined boldly
and fearlessly to state the principles upon which his public conduct had
been founded, the sentiments he professed on most of the important
subjects which interest mankind, and the views he entertained of the
progress of society. He would then describe, in the most glowing
language, the domestic happiness which he enjoyed in his native isle.
He would paint, in harrowing sentences, the eternal misery and disgrace
which his ignominious execution would entail upon the grey-headed
father, who looked up to him as a prop for his old age; the affectionate
mother, who perceived in him her husband again a youth; the devoted
wife, who could never survive his loss; and the sixteen children,
chiefly girls, whom his death would infallibly send upon the parish.
This, with an eulogistic peroration on the moral qualities of the
Vraibleusians and the political importance of Vraibleusia, would, he had
no doubt, not only save his neck, but even gain him a moderate pension.

The day arrived, the Court was crowded, and Popanilla had the
satisfaction of observing in the newspapers that tickets for the best
gallery to witness his execution were selling at a premium.

The indictment was read. He listened to it with intense attention. To
his surprise, he found himself accused of stealing two hundred and
nineteen Camelopards. All was now explained. He perceived that he had
been mistaken the whole of this time for another person. He could not
contain himself. He burst into an exclamation. He told the judge, in a
voice of mingled delight, humility, and triumph, that it was possible he
might be guilty of high treason, because he was ignorant of what the
crime consisted; but as for stealing two hundred and nineteen
Camelopards, he declared that such a larceny was a moral impossibility,
because he had never seen one such animal in the whole course of his
life.

The judge was kind and considerate. He told the prisoner that the
charge of stealing Camelopards was a fiction of law; that he had no
doubt he had never seen one in the whole course of his life, nor in all
probability had any one in the whole Court. He explained to Popanilla,
that originally this animal greatly abounded in Vraibleusia; that the
present Court, the highest and most ancient in the kingdom, had then
been instituted for tile punishment of all those who molested or injured
that splendid animal. The species, his lordship continued, had been
long extinct; but the Vraibleusians, duly reverencing the institutions
of their ancestors, had never presumed to abrogate the authority of the
Camelopard Court, or invest any other with equal privileges. Therefore,
his lordship added, in order to try you in this Court for a modern
offence of high treason, you must first be introduced by fiction of law
as a stealer of Camelopards, and then being in praesenti regio, in a
manner, we proceed to business by a special power for the absolute
offence. Popanilla was so confounded by the kindness of the judge and
the clearness of his lordship's statement that he quite lost the thread
of his peroration.

The trial proceeded. Everybody with whom Popanilla had conversed during
his visit to Vraibleusia was subpoenaed against him, and the evidence was
conclusive. Skindeep, who was brought up by a warrant from the King's
Bench, proved the fact of Popanilla's landing; and that he had given
himself out as a political exile, the victim of a tyrant, a corrupt
aristocracy, and a misguided people. But, either from a secret feeling
towards his former friend or from his aversion to answer questions, this
evidence was on the whole not very satisfactory.

The bookseller proved the publication of that fatal volume whose
deceptive and glowing statements were alone sufficient to ensure
Popanilla's fate. It was in vain that the author avowed that he had
never written a line of his own book. This only made his imposture more
evident. The little philosopher with whom he had conversed at Lady
Spirituelle's, and who, being a friend of Flummery Flam, had now
obtained a place under Government, invented the most condemning
evidence. The Marquess of Moustache sent in a state paper, desiring to
be excused from giving evidence, on account of the delicate situation in
which he had been placed with regard to the prisoner; but he referred
them to his former Private Secretary, who, he had no doubt, would afford
every information. Accordingly, the President of Fort Jobation, who had
been brought over specially, finished the business.

The Judge, although his family had suffered considerably by the late
madness for speculation, summed up in the most impartial manner. He
told the jury that, although the case was quite clear against the
prisoner, they were bound to give him the advantage of every reasonable
doubt. The foreman was about to deliver the verdict, when a trumpet
sounded, and a Government messenger ran breathless into Court.
Presenting a scroll to the presiding genius, he informed him that a
remarkably able young man, recently appointed one of the Managers of the
Statue, in consequence of the inconvenience which the public sustained
from the innumerable quantity of edicts of the Statue at present in
force, had last night consolidated them all into this single act, which,
to render its operation still more simple, was gifted with a
retrospective power for the last half century.

His lordship, looking over the scroll, passed a high eulogium upon the
young consolidator, compared to whom, he said, Justinian was a country
attorney. Observing, however, that the crime of high treason had been
accidentally omitted in the consolidated legislation of Vraibleusia, he
directed the jury to find the prisoner 'not guilty.' As in Vraibleusia
the law believes every man's character to be perfectly pure until a jury
of twelve persons finds the reverse, Popanilla was kicked out of court,
amid the hootings of the mob, without a stain upon his reputation.

It was late in the evening when he left the court. Exhausted both in
mind and body, the mischief being now done, and being totally
unemployed, according to custom, he began to moralise. 'I begin to
perceive,' said he, 'that it is possible for a nation to exist in too
artificial a state; that a people may both think too much and do too
much. All here exists in a state of exaggeration. The nation itself
professes to be in a situation in which it is impossible for any nation
ever to be naturally placed. To maintain themselves in this false
position, they necessarily have recourse to much destructive conduct and
to many fictitious principles. And as the character of a people is
modelled on that of their Government, in private life this system of
exaggeration equally prevails, and equally produces a due quantity of
ruinous actions and false sentiment! In the meantime, I am starving,
and dare not show my face in the light of day!'

As he said this the house opposite was suddenly lit up, and the words
'EMIGRATION COMMITTEE' were distinctly visible on a transparent blind.
A sudden resolution entered Popanilla's mind to make an application to
this body. He entered the Committee-room, and took his place at the end
of a row of individuals, who were severally examined. When it was his
turn to come forward he began to tell his story from the beginning, and
would certainly have got to the lock of hair had not the President
enjoined silence. Popanilla was informed that the last
Emigration-squadron was about to sail in a few minutes; and that,
although the number was completed, his broad shoulders and powerful
frame had gained him a place. He was presented with a spade, a blanket,
and a hard biscuit, and in a quarter of an hour was quitting the port of
Hubbabub.

Once more upon the waters, yet once more!

As the Emigration-squadron quitted the harbour two large fleets hove in
sight. The first was the expedition which had been despatched against
the decapitating King of the North, and which now returned heavily laden
with his rescued subjects. The other was the force which had flown to
the preservation of the body of the decapitated King of the South, and
which now brought back his Majesty embalmed, some Princes of the blood,
and an emigrant Aristocracy.

What became of the late Fantaisian Ambassador; whether he were destined
for Van Diemen's Land or for Canada; what rare adventures he experienced
in Sydney, or Port Jackson, or Guelph City, or Goodrich Town; and
whether he discovered that man might exist in too natural a state, as
well as in too artificial a one, will probably be discovered, if ever we
obtain Captain Popanilla's Second Voyage.

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