September 24, 1701

September 24, 1701, stands as the pivotal date on which Lemuel Gulliver, after nearly nine months of captivity, service, and intrigue in the diminutive empires of Lilliput and Blefuscu, finally set sail from Blefuscu and began his return voyage to England. This single day marks the decisive end of his first adventure and the transition from a world where he was a giant among six-inch inhabitants back to his own scale of existence, a journey that would culminate in his rescue by an English merchantman and his eventual reunion with his family.

The Context of Departure

Gulliver's departure on September 24, 1701, was the culmination of a rapid and desperate sequence of events. After escaping a conspiracy in Lilliput that threatened him with blinding and slow starvation, he had fled to Blefuscu, where he was received by the Emperor of Blefuscu. While there, he discovered a real boat, overturned on the coast, which he recognized as his only means of leaving the island world entirely. With the permission of the Blefuscu monarch, he spent about a month preparing the vessel, assisted by five hundred workmen who made sails by quilting thirteen folds of linen, and by the king's ship-carpenters who helped smooth the timber he cut for oars and masts. He also found a great stone to serve as an anchor and used the tallow of three hundred cows for greasing the boat. By the morning of September 24, 1701, all was ready.

The Departure Itself

On that morning, at six o'clock, Gulliver set sail. Before leaving, he took a formal leave of the Blefuscu court: the emperor and royal family came out of the palace, and Gulliver lay down on his face to kiss the emperor's hand, which was graciously given; the empress and young princes of the blood did the same. The emperor presented him with fifty purses of two hundred sprugs each, along with his picture at full length, which Gulliver immediately put into one of his gloves to protect it. He stored the boat with the carcasses of a hundred oxen and three hundred sheep, with bread and drink in proportion, and as much ready-dressed meat as four hundred cooks could provide. He also took six cows and two bulls alive, with as many ewes and lambs, intending to carry them to England and propagate the breed. The emperor, however, would by no means permit him to take any of the natives, even with their own consent, and made Gulliver engage his honor not to carry away any subjects.

The Voyage and Rescue

Gulliver sailed northward with a southeast wind. By six in the evening he had gone about four leagues and descried a small island to the northwest, where he anchored for the night. He slept well, ate breakfast before sunrise, and continued his course the next day, steering by his pocket-compass toward islands he believed lay northeast of Van Diemen's Land. On the following day, September 26, 1701, after making twenty-four leagues from Blefuscu, he descried a sail steering to the southeast. He hailed her and, making all sail, came up with her between five and six in the evening. The ship proved to be an English merchantman returning from Japan, commanded by Captain John Biddle of Deptford. When Gulliver came on board, he put his cows and sheep into his coat-pockets and presented the captain with two purses of two hundred sprugs each, promising a cow and a sheep upon their arrival in England. The captain, initially thinking Gulliver raving, was convinced by the sight of the miniature livestock.

The Return to England and Its Aftermath

The voyage was prosperous for the most part, and the ship arrived in the Downs on April 13, 1702. Gulliver suffered only one misfortune: rats on board carried away one of his sheep, whose bones he later found in a hole. He got the rest of his cattle safe ashore and set them grazing on a bowling-green at Greenwich. During the short time he remained in England, he made a considerable profit by showing his cattle to persons of quality, and before beginning his second voyage he sold them for six hundred pounds. He stayed only two months with his wife and family before his insatiable desire of seeing foreign countries drove him to sea again, leaving his wife settled in a good house at Redriff with fifteen hundred pounds. The date September 24, 1701, thus stands as the precise hinge between Gulliver's first extraordinary adventure and his return to the ordinary world, a return that would prove brief before his restless nature compelled him to embark once more.