An Account of the Giants Lately Discovered

An Account of the Giants Lately Discovered

A letter from "S. T." dated July 1, 1766, addressed to "Will," recounts a startling report reaching London: that Captain Byron and his crew have sighted five hundred Giants on horseback on the coast of Patagonia, men some nine or ten feet tall, though the crew kept the matter secret for a year. The writer notes that Sir John Narborough and, more recently, Maupertuis had already recorded knowledge of such a nation, and that the Spaniards claim long acquaintance with them, though few ships touch that coast since they stand out to sea to round the Cape. The writer relates what is known of the encounter. Byron saw a body of men on small horses in the distance; as they neared, the horses proved ordinary but the riders enormous. When the English landed, the Giants retreated, so Byron ordered his men to lay down their arms and stand still while he advanced alone. The Giants stopped, and Byron addressed them in every language he knew, none of which they understood; they answered in their own tongue, which a reverend critic has pronounced Phoenician on the strength of a single remembered syllable. Unable to converse, the two sides resorted to signs. Byron sat on the ground, and the Giants did likewise, dismounting; when he rose, the nearest Giant, though seated, was taller than he. After an hour or two of fruitless signing, Byron gathered that the Giants invited him into the woods, presumably toward their king's residence, but he declined, and they showed concern without forcing him. When he departed, they remained motionless, watching until the ship was out of sight. Further details follow: the Giants wore skins of beasts, painted their eyes different colors, carried spears tipped with fish-bone, ate fish raw, and showed great reluctance to taste liquids Byron offered them, spitting out a toast after politely accepting it, perhaps fearing intoxication or poison. Despite their size, they felt the cold as keenly as ordinary men. A few Giantesses accompanied them, though Byron did not examine them closely. The writer then turns to speculation the discovery has provoked. He wonders whether the country's scale matches its inhabitants, its oaks, corn, sheep, cattle, and poultry, though he doubts a nation of such size could be fed as Gulliver's proportions would suggest, since only elephants and leviathans seem adequate prey. He addresses whether Byron claimed Patagonia for the Crown, suggests the Giants be organized under a West-Indian trading company with dividends for proprietors, and proposes exploiting them as slaves in the sugar trade, worked harder than Black slaves and deliberately maimed and broken in spirit to prevent danger, which would also relieve pressure on Africa's slave supply. He touches on hereditary monarchy's exceptions (Poland, Corsica, Russia, Peru, Paraguay) and on English commercial schemes such as India Bonds, suggesting a new South-Sea scheme built around the Patagonians. He also raises, and rejects, a scheme to import Giants as second husbands for dowagers, preferring instead a controlled importation to improve the English "breed," and proposes sending a jury of matrons on the next voyage to report on the Giants' properties, trusting their judgment over that of philosophers. Finally, the writer considers learned debate over the Giants' origin: whether they are Aborigines native to their land since Creation, or descendants of Noah's sons who grew to extraordinary stature unnoticed, or victims of climate as in Jamaica's oranges. He favors the conjecture that they are descendants of the lost Ten Tribes, their religion, language, and stature preserved by remaining unmixed with other peoples, their worship perhaps closer to the patriarchs' than any other nation's. He anticipates curiosity about their religion, comparing their apparent lack of visible worship to the Hottentots or Fingal's heroes, and looks forward to learning their poetry, imagining it full of sublime, lofty images befitting giants, superior to the inventions of modern romance-writers. He closes hoping that any colonization proceeds only after the Giants' history, laws, and opinions are properly studied, that conversion to Christianity not simply precede their slaughter, and that no vast grants of their land be made before deciding the fate of the present occupiers, nor troops wasted conquering territory only to hand it back, as happened at the Havannah.

By Horace Walpole · First published 1766 · Genre: Satire, Speculative fiction, Travel narrative · 4,443 words

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Dear Will,

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Giants · Patagonia · Exploration · Discovery · Satire · Imperialism · Colonialism · Slavery · Commerce · Epistolary · Natural philosophy · Lost tribes

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