Why does Gulliver allow the Lilliputians to control him in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels?

When Lemuel Gulliver is shipwrecked, he washes ashore on an island and then falls asleep. When he wakes up, he has been tied down with ropes on numerous parts of body. He learns that this is the land Lilliput, where the people are only six inches tall. Nevertheless, the men are armed with bows and arrows, which they prove willing to use against him.
Although Gulliver is much larger, he is a guest and a prisoner of the Emperor of Lilliput and dependent on them for food and water. Relying on diplomacy rather than brute force, he uses his wits to learn their language and figure out ways to encourage the emperor to grant him his freedom. His liberation finally comes with conditions about his proper behavior and a commitment to become the Lilliputians’s ally against their rival, Blefuscu.