superior, who generally resided at Rome, was well understood to relate merely to their professional duties. It was first made an object of jealousy, exclusively with regard to the Jesuits, at the time that the parliaments were studying every mode of making them odious; and, before that time, the native country of their general was a matter of indifference. The native country of the pope was never alleged as a motive for rejecting his authority. The obedience of the Jesuits was voluntary; and they knew, from their institute, that it never could supersede the duty which they owed to the government under which they lived. Can sir John adduce a single instance of a Jesuit's betraying the country, or the government, which protected him? The first superiors of the French Jesuits were Spaniards and Italians. The superior of the Venetian Jesuits, during the famous contest between that state and Paul V, was a Frenchman.
In friendly consideration for the instructors of his numerous valuable friends, sir John informs
the House of Commons, that, though the empress of Russia countenanced the re-organization of the society within her dominions, "it was in a degraded state, to suit the views of her policy;" and, in a note, he informs the world at large, that "a correspondent of great consideration observed, that the empress was well pleased with the opportunity of snapping her fingers (narguer) at the courts of Versailles and Madrid, and showing them and the world at large, that she could render the institution tractable by her superior authority and management; that is, that she could tame wild beasts, which they were forced to destroy[[34]]." It is not for me to
divine by what means sir John, or his correspondent, obtained such possession of the secrets of Catherine's mind, as to be able to decide, in the face of the world, that her conduct, in saving the Jesuits, was guided by petty motives of private interest, and especially the secret desire de narguer, in plain English to jeer and jibe, to fleer and flout, the French and Spanish courts; but, if so, it evidently supposes some previous cause of dissatisfaction with those courts. What that cause was it is for sir John or his correspondent to state: to the generality of men, I believe, it remains a mystery. I am ignorant of any such cause, and, being in the class of ordinary observers, I ascribe the conduct of the empress to the more generous motives, which she and her two successors have avowed to the world. These are, the duty of providing for their catholic subjects suitable ministers and teachers; their knowledge
that the Jesuits of White Russia are such; their abhorrence of the injustice, which would strip them of their property, of their civil state and profession, and abolish their canonical existence, without any proof of crime or misdemeanour; and, finally, their royal word and faith pledged to maintain inviolably the status quo of the catholic religion and its ministers, as settled in the pacta conventa of the cession of White Russia to their dominion[[35]]. These motives
have something in them honourable, generous, and dignified. I revere the empress, who, acting upon them, could at once read a lesson of justice to other monarchs, and rescue from destruction a remnant of the persecuted society. Instead of attributing to her the paltry spirit de narguer, I will, with sir John's permission, apply to her the praise which Cicero addressed to Cæsar, in his oration for Marcellus: "Nobilissimam familiam, jam ad paucos redactam, pene ab interitu vindicasti!" Sir John will not refuse her this compliment, when he discovers the extraordinary inaccuracy into which he has been betrayed by his informer. He asserts[[36]], that Catherine "secured the tractability of these
restless men by the sine qua non of the residence of their general, a subject, within the state." It is true, that their general could not conveniently reside in any other state; but my information emboldens me to affirm, that no restraint whatever was laid upon the Jesuits, in the election of their generals; that they have already elected five in Russia, all of whom have been foreigners. The three first were Poles, of whom one, named by sir John, F. Carew, was of British extraction. Their late general, Gruber, was an Austrian; the present superior is a Prussian, and is actually expected at Rome.
In a detail of restrictions he mentions the superintendence of the seminaries being consigned to the ministry of public inspection, and asserts, that priests of the Greek national church are directed to attend the Jesuit colleges, to instruct the pupils of the Greek communion in religion. I am unacquainted with the weight of authority to be allowed to sir John's correspondent; but, certainly, the result of my inquiries differs
widely from the information communicated by him. The Jesuits have, ever since their establishment in Russia, been treated with unsuspecting liberality. The integrity of their institute has been scrupulously maintained, and the authority given to the catholic archbishop of Mohilow has ever been exactly confined within the limits prescribed by the council of Trent. By a law of the present emperor, all colleges were subjected to the control of the university of Petersburgh. The Jesuits, feeling the inconvenience of this, soon had their own chief college of Polosk erected into a university, by which they became exempted from the temporary control. They have an establishment at Petersburgh, called the "College of Nobles," into which young noblemen only are admitted as pensioners, and these are educated in the regular collegiate discipline, whatever be their religion. They attend at divine service, and at public catechisms and instructions. The majority of them are of the national religion, and, if their parents or they themselves desire it, the
superior of the Jesuits permits a priest of the Greek church to come to the college on Sunday, where he explains the national catechism to them in a private room. Beyond this he has nothing to do in the house. This practice may be known at court, but it was neither enjoined nor recommended by the court. This is the account I have collected of the Jesuits in Russia, and, I am persuaded, that they are not more restricted than the catholics in general, whom sir John appears to attack through the Jesuits, for in this long note (page 36), which seemed exclusively designed for the exposure of their Russian degradation, he slides unexpectedly into an exposure of "the restrictions, which attach generally upon the exercise of the Roman catholic discipline." In this I have here no part to take, the general question has passed through abler hands than mine; my subject confines me to the society of the Jesuits, and in so doing calls upon me to notice the advertisement prefixed to sir John Hippisley's Speech. In that advertisement we find it to be sir John's opinion,