Three days after arriving in Blefuscu, Gulliver walks out of curiosity to the island’s north-east coast.
About half a league out to sea, something like an overturned boat is floating. He takes off his shoes and stockings and wades out two or three hundred yards. As the tide carries it nearer, he can see plainly that it is a real boat. A storm has probably torn it loose from some ship.
He goes straight back to the capital and asks the emperor for help. He wants twenty of the tallest ships left after the loss of the fleet, and three thousand seamen under the vice-admiral.