"I observe among you some lines of an institution which, in its original, might have been tolerable; but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions..."See in text(Part II - Chapter VI)
Notice that the tone during this scathing critique is much more serious than when Swift usually satirizes European government. Swift illustrates the ways in which laws that were once created with noble ideals can be corrupted by power or greed. The king is not “poking fun” at government here but rather passionately stating the stakes of a corrupted system.
