Gulliver admits he also has some doubts about the purpose of the whole colonial enterprise, which seems to be just to exploit other nations. He adds (of course Swift means it ironically) that Britain is the best when it comes to ruling the colonies and sends only its best men there. But since the countries Gulliver visited don’t seem to want to be vanquished, and have no precious natural resources, it’s best to leave them alone. But if anyone asks, Gulliver is ready to affirm under an oath that he was the first European to visit them. In the last paragraphs Gulliver describes his life now: he spends it on contemplaiton at home. Recently he started to allow his wife to dine with him, provided that she sits on the other end of a long table, speaks only when she is spoken to, and then only briefly, while Gulliver still has to stop his nose. But he hopes with time and training he may even be ready to suffer a neighbour to come to him. On the whole, he doesn’t even mind that the Yahoos are so nasty, naming here a long list of various criminals, but what really gets him when he sees such a deformed creature puffed up with pride. The Houyhnhnms, the most perfect of creatures, are never proud because for them to be proud of their virtues would be as silly as for us to be proud of having two legs and two arms. For that reason Gulliver asks any Yahoo who is at least a little bit proud not to appear in his sight.
And thus end “Gulliver’s Travels”. I remember it was a stomach punch for me when I read it as a teenager, and it had a similar effect on many readers, so much so that people in the 19th century believed that Swift was mad when he was writing it. Now I am a bit older, read a bit of criticism which taught me not to identify the narrator with the author and also not to take at face value everything Gulliver says. Some of his behaviour, like him considering himself to be a kind of honorary Houyhnhnm, is more understandable in the context of the previous parts: when he returned from the Lilliput, he thought everyone was huge, and when he returned from the Brobdignag, he thought everyone was tiny, so I think it’s logical that the Houyhnhnm land, where he stayed (if I remeber correctly) the longest, should have a similar effect on him.