Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift | Part 4, Chapter 12

In part four, chapter 12, the final chapter of Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver swears to the truth of his story, saying he would rather present facts than tell strange, improbable tales. He believes a traveler's goal should be to educate readers and make them wiser and better. He expresses a belief that other travelogues published do not adhere to the truth, and this bothers him. He's resigned to a life of telling the truth always. Technically, Gulliver is supposed to report his discoveries to the government, as lands discovered by a British subject belong to the Crown by English law. But Gulliver is reluctant to do this because he believes Lilliput, not worth the trouble, and the Brobdingnagians impossible to defeat, and he would rather see the Houenems colonize Europe. He also opposes the principle of one sovereign nation conquering another, although he concedes that Britain uses wisdom, care, and justice in planting colonies. After some time at home, Gulliver is even willing to allow his wife to sit near him again, although her Yahoo odor offends him. He is becoming, slowly but surely, more tolerant of Yahoo society again, although he reserves great disgust for any Yahoo he meets who exhibits pride. Gulliver ends with criticism of colonization in a general sense. His reluctance to take part in one nation's subjugation of another harkens back to his refusal to help the Lilliputian emperor conquer Blefuscu, and he is no more willing to assist his own country in taking over the lands he's explored. The practice of colonization, even though he concedes the British do it well, clashes with Gulliver's principles and ideas about sovereignty. He also seems to believe his culture, as a Yahoo, has little to offer others. He reserves his greatest anger for those Yahoos who exhibit pride when they have nothing to be proud of, either in terms of virtue or vice. Colonization is the ultimate expression of pride, as it rests on the assumption that one nation has more to be proud of than another. Throughout Gulliver's travels, Swift offers his readers evidence to the contrary, that what one culture considers desirable often seems ludicrous or appalling to another.