A rational Parrot.
"I had a mind to know, from Prince Maurice's own mouth, the account of a common, but much
credited story, that I had heard so often from many others, of an old parrot he had in Brazil, during his
government there, that spoke, and asked, and answered common questions, like a reasonable creature: so that
those of his train there generally concluded it to be witchery or possession; and one of his chaplains, who lived
long afterwards in Holland, would never from that time endure a parrot, but said they all had a devil in them. I had
heard many particulars of this story, and as severed by people hard to be discredited, which made me ask Prince
Maurice what there was of it. He said, with his usual plainness and dryness in talk, there was something true, but a
great deal false of what had been reported. I desired to know of him what there was of the first. He told me short
and coldly, that he had heard of such an old parrot when he had been at Brazil; and though he believed nothing of
it, and it was a good way off, yet he had so much curiosity as to send for it: that it was a very great and a very old
one; and when it came first into the room where the prince was, with a great many Dutchmen about him, it said
presently, What a company of white men are here! They asked it, what it thought that man was, pointing to the
prince. It answered, Some General or other. When they brought it close to him, he asked it, D'où venez-vous? It
answered, De Marinnan. The Prince, À qui estes-vous? The Parrot, À un Portugais. The Prince, Que fais-tu là?
Parrot, Je garde les poulles. The Prince laughed, and said, Vous gardez les poulles? The Parrot answered, Oui,
moi; et je scai bien faire; and made the chuck four or five times that people use to make to chickens when they
call them. I set down the words of this worthy dialogue in French, just as Prince Maurice said them to me. I asked
him in what language the parrot spoke, and he said in Brazilian. I asked whether he understood Brazilian; he said
No, but he had taken care to have two interpreters by him, the one a Dutchman that spoke Brazilian, and the other
a Brazilian that spoke Dutch; that he asked them separately and privately, and both of them agreed in telling him
just the same thing that the parrot had said. I could not but tell this odd story, because it is so much out of the way,
and from the first hand, and what may pass for a good one; for I dare say this Prince at least believed himself in
all he told me, having ever passed for a very honest and pious man: I leave it to naturalists to reason, and to other
men to believe, as they please upon it; however, it is not, perhaps, amiss to relieve or enliven a busy scene
sometimes with such digressions, whether to the purpose or no."
