the island hovering over such a town, and the lands about it,
whereby he can deprive them of the benefit of the sun and the rain, and
consequently afflict the inhabitants with dearth and diseases: and if the
crime deserve it, they are at the same time pelted from above with great
stones, against which they have no defence but by creeping into cellars
or caves, while the roofs of their houses are beaten to pieces. But if
they still continue obstinate, or offer to raise insurrections, he
proceeds to the last remedy, by letting the island drop directly upon
their heads, which makes a universal destruction both of houses and men.
However, this is an extremity to which the prince is seldom driven,
neither indeed is he willing to put it in execution; nor dare his
ministers advise him to an action, which, as it would render them odious
to the people, so it would be a great damage to their own estates, which
all lie below; for the island is the king's demesne.

But there is still indeed a more weighty reason, why the kings of this
country have been always averse from executing so terrible an action,
unless upon the utmost necessity. For, if the town intended to be
destroyed should have in it any tall rocks, as it generally falls out in
the larger cities, a situation probably chosen at first with a view to
prevent such a catastrophe; or if it abound in high spires, or pillars of
stone, a sudden fall might endanger the bottom or under surface of the
island, which, although it consist, as I have said, of one entire
adamant, two hundred yards thick, might happen to crack by too great a
shock, or burst by approaching too near the fires from the houses below,
as the backs, both of iron and stone, will often do in our chimneys. Of
all this the people are well apprised, and understand how far to carry
their obstinacy, where their liberty or property is concerned. And the
king, when he is highest provoked, and most determined to press a city to
rubbish, orders the island to descend with great gentleness, out of a
pretence of tenderness to his people, but, indeed, for fear of breaking
the adamantine bottom; in which case, it is the opinion of all their
philosophers, that the loadstone could no longer hold it up, and the
whole mass would fall to the ground.

By a fundamental law of this realm, neither the king, nor either of his
two eldest sons, are permitted to leave the island; nor the queen, till
she is past child-bearing.