History of the Jesuits: Their origin, progress, doctrines, and designs

by G. B. Nicolini

Before we proceed further, we think it necessary in this place to give our readers some general idea of the commercial operations of the Society.

The large donations which, at the commencement of the institution, had enriched the Society, having become less frequent, the Jesuits thought of increasing their wealth by applying themselves to trade. They pretended that there was no material difference between the practice of agriculture, which had formed the principal occupation of the first monastic orders, and the labour of commerce in which they were engaged. The Collegio Romano possessed a manufactory of cloth at Macerata, and though at first they produced it only for their own use, yet they soon proceeded to supply all the other colleges in the provinces, and ultimately the public in general, for which last purpose they attended the fairs. From the close connexion existing between the different colleges, there resulted a system of banking business; and the Portuguese ambassador at Rome was empowered to draw on the Jesuits of Portugal. Their commercial transactions were particularly prosperous in the colonies. The trading connexion of the order extended, as it were, a network over both continents, having Lisbon for its central point.[328] Such is the account given by our contemporary historian. We shall now quote the opinion of an eye-witness, a man high in power in India, and who could certainly have had the best information regarding the facts. M. Martin, general commander of Pondicherry, expresses himself thus:—

“It is certain that, after the Dutch, the Jesuits are the largest and the richest traders in India, richer even than the English, than the Portuguese themselves, who have brought them there.... Those disguised Jesuits intrigue everywhere. The secret correspondence they keep up amongst themselves, apprises them of the merchandises that ought to be bought or sold, and to what nation, in order to make a more considerable profit; so that those disguised Jesuits are of immense advantage to the Society, and are only responsible to the Order represented by other Jesuits, who overrun the world under the true habit of St Ignatius, and who possess the confidence, the secrets, and the orders of their chiefs in Europe. Those Jesuits, disguised and dispersed all over the earth, know each other by signals, like the freemasons, and act all upon the same plan. They send merchandise to other disguised Jesuits, who, having the goods from first hand, realise considerable profits for the order. However, this traffic is highly prejudicial to the interest of France. I have often written about it to the Company (of India), but under Louis XIV. I have received orders very precise, and often repeated, to grant and advance to those fathers all that they may ask. And Father Tashard alone owes at this moment more than 450,000 francs to the Company (of India).”[329] We have reported this document, because it was considered at the time, even in Rome, and by the Papal Court, as of great importance, and as representing the real state of things.

In the West Indies, Jesuits were to be found in all the markets with different kinds of produce; and this they do not even attempt to deny, but excuse themselves by saying that “the ecclesiastical law has never forbidden the sale of the produce of one’s own domains. The Jesuits were the guardians of the Christians, whom they had re-united in society in Paraguay; and in consideration of the inability of these savages to manage their own affairs, many Spanish kings granted to the missionaries the right of selling the produce of the ground cultivated by the neophytes, as well as that of their own industry.”[330] The Jesuits had so well used this liberty of trading, that the largest banking houses in South America belonged to the Company, and one of them[331] alone became bankrupt for more than two millions and a half of francs, an enormous sum at the epoch.

Nor had they been less busy and active speculators in Europe. In Malta, in the year 1639, during a famine, the Jesuits, who had five thousand sacks of corn in their granaries, in order that they might not be obliged to give it up to the government at a lower price than they expected for it, applied to the Grand Master Lascaris for succour to their actual necessities, and were relieved, on account of their supposed poverty, from the public storehouse. But the trick was at last discovered, and they were expelled from the island. But we could not adduce stronger proofs of their eagerness to accumulate wealth than the letters of Vitelleschi, Caraffa, and Nickel, some passages of which we have reported, in which they bitterly complain of that spirit of avarice and speculation which had pervaded all the classes of Jesuits, and which they vainly deprecated.

To return to our narrative; Saldanha, either to satisfy the impatience of Pombal, or because the proofs of the Jesuits’ guilt were too numerous and too clear, soon published a decree severely reprobating the commercial pursuits of the order, and empowering the royal authorities to confiscate all merchandise belonging to those ecclesiastics.[332]

But, in the meanwhile, the man who had ordered the visitation, and to whom belonged the ultimate decision, Lambertini (Benedict XIV.), had departed from this world. Had God granted him a longer life, he would probably have taken energetic and decisive measures against the order; and any other pontiff than the one who succeeded him, would in all likelihood, in one way or another, have given satisfaction to the public opinion. But, unfortunately perhaps for the Jesuits, Benedict XIV. was succeeded by a man wholly blinded in their favour, who declared that, to the last, he would be the protector and the friend of “the holy Company of Jesus.” This man was Raggonico, who assumed the name of Clement XIII. He was pure in soul, and upright in purpose. He was constantly engaged in fervent prayer, and his highest ambition was to obtain a canonisation. But he was a bigoted fanatic—was convinced that the power of the Papacy should be unlimited; and in the Jesuits he beheld the most faithful defenders of the Papal See and of religion. But, besides the disposition of the Pope in their favour, the Jesuits had, in the Court of Rome, a still more efficient supporter in the person of Cardinal Torrigiani, in whose hand actually resided all the power. “He had the reputation,” says Ranke, “of taking a personal interest in the farming of the papal revenues, and was said to be generally fond of power for its own sake.”[333] It is, then, easy to be conceived that the Jesuits, in order to preserve the bulk of their wealth, did not hesitate to sacrifice a part to satiate the avidity of the cardinal; and that to this is to be attributed the partiality, we should say the servility, evinced by Torrigiani towards the order. But this partiality of the Pope and his minister proved fatal to the Company. Had they consented to effect some substantial reforms, the Society might yet have existed for some time longer, or at least have only perished in the general shipwreck produced by the French Revolution, and they would not have had pronounced upon them the terrible and crushing sentence of Clement XIV.

Pombal perceived at once that no hope could be entertained that such a Pope would co-operate in the suppression, or even in the reform and abasement of the Jesuits, but did not, for that reason, renounce his projects; he only waited for a more fitting moment to effect his purpose by his own authority.

Circumstances served Pombal’s designs better than he could have expected. Joseph I. had an intimacy with Dona Theresa, the young wife of the Marquis of Tavora, one of the noblest families in Portugal, and one which, having scorned Pombal’s alliance, was particularly hated by him. Now it happened, on the night of the 3d of September 1758, that the king, returning to the palace from a visit to Dona Theresa, was wounded in the arm by a pistol-shot fired upon him. Next morning the court presented an unusual aspect. The gates of the palace were shut; the king did not make his appearance, and nobody knew exactly what was the cause of these strange measures. It was indeed whispered that an attempt had been made upon the king’s person; but nobody dared to speak it aloud, or knew to what extent it was true. The courtiers were all taciturn and in consternation. Pombal alone appeared calm and serene. This state of things lasted for some days. At last this anxiety was by degrees dispelled, and, a few weeks after, nobody thought any more about the attempt, and many doubted whether it had ever occurred. But on the 12th of September, the Duke of Averio, of the family of Mascarenhas, who, with Tavora, was at the head of the Portuguese aristocracy, the Marquis of Tavora, Dona Eleanor, his mother, and many of their relations and servants, were suddenly arrested and thrown into prison. Our limits will not admit of our examining whether or not the prisoners were culpable, or in what degree. It seems most probable that the young Marquis of Tavora may have attempted to avenge his injured honour; and indeed there is every reason to believe that some of the prisoners arrested were really accomplices of the crime; but, as the trial was not public, as it was conducted by an exceptional tribunal la inconfidenza, and as Pombal has never substantiated, by valid proofs, the accusation brought against them, it would be harsh to form any decided judgment. What is incontestable is, that all forms of justice were violated in the trial, and that the cruel and inhuman way in which the unfortunate prisoners were tortured and executed, would induce us to believe that this sacrifice of human life was offered rather to revenge than to justice. In the night of 12th of January 1759, a scaffold, eighteen feet high, was erected on the square of Belem, fronting the Tagus. At daybreak, this open space was filled with soldiers and the populace, and even the river was covered with spectators. The servants of the Duke of Averio appeared first upon the platform, and were fastened to one of the corners to be burned alive. The Marchioness of Tavora then ascended the scaffold with a rope around her neck, and a crucifix in her hand. She was scantily clad in some tattered clothes, but her whole figure and demeanour were stamped with firmness and dignity. The executioner, in attempting to bind her feet, accidentally raised the hem of her robe. “Stop!” cried she, “forget not who I am; touch me only to kill me.” The executioner fell on his knees before Dona Eleanor, and begged her to pardon him, whereupon she drew a ring from her finger, and said, “Here; I have nothing but this in the world; take it, and do your duty.” This courageous woman then laid her head upon the block, and received her death-blow. Her husband, her sons, the youngest of whom was not twenty years of age, her son-in-law, and several servants, perished after her in frightful torments. The Duke of Averio was led forward the last; he was fastened to the wheel, his body covered with rags, and his arms and thighs naked. Thus was he broken alive, not expiring till after he had endured protracted tortures, making the square and the neighbourhood re-echo with frightful cries. At length the machine was set on fire, and presently wheel, scaffold, bodies, all, were burned and cast into the Tagus.[334] Even if the sentence had been just, the merciless cruelty which Pombal shewed in accomplishing its execution has greatly tarnished his fame, and diminished the admiration due to his other eminent services rendered to Portugal.

Meanwhile, on the night which preceded the execution of the prisoners, the house of the Jesuits was invested, their chiefs were cast into prison, and three of them, Mattos, Alexander, and Malagrida, accused of having fomented the conspiracy. With what degree of truth this accusation was brought against them, it is also difficult to say. According to the sentence passed upon them, the suspicions of their having participated therein were confirmed by their arrogance previous to the attempt, and their desponding after its failure; by their intimate connexion with the chief of the accused (D’Averio), with whom they had formerly been at variance; by a conversation reported of Father Conta, who, it seems, had declared that a man who should murder the king would not be guilty of even a venial sin. Their intercourse with the conspirators was indeed unquestionable. They had been their friends and advisers, and had taken a decided part in the discontent, murmurs, and open opposition of the Fidalgoes.[335] But no other material proof was brought to confirm the charge, and although the three accused were condemned to suffer the highest punishment, the sentence was not executed. Malagrida, who some time after was burned, suffered for the crime of heresy, not for that of regicide. Whatever opinion our readers may form of the Jesuits’ guilt or innocence, Pombal, in his manifestoes, represented them as guilty, and called for the animadversion of Europe upon them, while he himself was taking more decisive measures to destroy the order.