Immediately Candide inquires as to where he can find a ship and tells Cacambo to go buy Cunégonde from the Governor, so they could meet in the free land of Venice. A skipper was quickly at Candide's service for ten thousand piastres and Candide agreed swiftly. At this, the skipper raised the price up to twenty thousand and soon after thirty thousand piastres. Candide parted easily with this fee, only to be duped later by the skipper and have no way to Venice. Fuming with rage, Candide rushed to the magistrate to plead his case! The judge first charged him for his irritability ten thousand and then another ten thousand after listening to his quandary for court fees. Everything Pangloss had taught him of the best of all worlds was simply refuted by all of the deformities of mankind.
The only furthered his frustration, so in a last act of hope Candide called for any honest man to give him company on a ship to Bordeaux; he would pay all of the fees. After inviting twenty men, he chose a man by the name of Martin and paid the others a small amount for their inconvenience. Martin was a scholar and an honest man who had undergone many hardships, just as Candide had.
And so the two honest men set sail, Candide with hopes of seeing Cunégonde, Pangloss' merry explanations in his favor and Martin whose hopes had all been washed away by the villainy of the world. It seemed that as soon as the ship left the harbor, Candide and Martin fell into deep philosophical discussion. Martin declared himself to be a Manichean Pessimist and believed that God takes no present actions on earth, leaving it all to the devil. While Pangloss, along with Candide, preferred the system of optimism, where “all is for the best in this best of possible worlds.”
Candide strives to prove optimism to Martin, but miserably fails each time. One day as they were sailing, cannons were heard and the skipper that had robbed Candide was in the sinking ship. “You see,” said Candide to Martin, “that vice is sometimes punished. This villain, the Dutch skipper, has met with the fate he deserved.” To this, Martin scoffed and said, “Very true, but why should the passengers be doomed also to destruction? God has punished the knave, and the Devil has drowned the rest.” In yet another instance, Candide asked Martin why he thought the earth was formed. With the wit as quick as a whip, Martin replied, “To make us mad.” The argument continued with Candide's persistency and Martin's constantly correct criticisms.
Still in disagreement, the crew set foot on French soil and ventured through solely to get to Venice… Or at least that was the plan until Candide fell ill. Through absurdity, two doctors were immediately at his side along with intimate friends and devotees because of the size of his diamonds! After a series of strange remedies, Candide is cured and heads to Paris.
Many strange events take place in Paris: at first Candide is seduced by a woman who takes a few diamonds from him and then he is given a letter from his love, “Cunégonde.” This letter professed her still standing love for Candide, as well as her illness that prevented her from running to him, which is why she had bid him come to her. In this illustration, Candide's faith in Pangloss' theory stands strong because it must all be for the best if Cunégonde has found him. Valiantly and naïvely, Candide, dragging Martin along, strut to her place of rest only to be arrested for that was the law about foreigners in this place. Under the advice of Martin, Candide paid the officer that had arrested them a few piastres and the officer gladly let them go and sent them to Normandy where his brother would be.
Three bullets entering the head of an admiral was Candide's first sight in England and that was the only sight he needed to reassure that the price he'd pay the captain was of no matter if he did not have to stay there. Men in England are clearly mad for they all kill each other. Voltaire seems to agree with Hobbes, when he said, “During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in the conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.” And he clearly did not agree with the British system of government because of it's barbaric ways. With all of these things in mind, Candide and Martin set sail to Venice in two days time.
