When this volume had nearly gone through the press, in the course of reading I met with the following curious passage, extracted from a Letter to a Noble Lord by a Country Gentleman, entitled "Considerations on the Penal Laws," &c. published by the Dodsleys, of Pall-Mall, so long ago as 1764, about two years after the suppression of the Jesuits in France, and eleven previous to their total suppression by Clement XIV; I insert it, as I think it will not be unacceptable to the reader:—"The rising generation are now forming their principles on the writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, D'Argens, and the philosopher of Sans-Souci; to whom may be added a long catalogue of authors of our own
country. In France grave magistrates already celebrate and THE FIRST COURTS OF JUDICATURE echo with the praises of Julian and Diocletian; calculations are made, and the period is pretended to be fixed, when Christianity is to be no more. The powerful weapon of ridicule is employed not against popery alone, but to render contemptible the whole Jewish and Christian revelation." The grave magistrates, and first courts of judicature, are no other than the French parliaments, who, we are informed by a member of the lower house, were "ever ready to support the national independence[[1]]:" we see by what steps, and we have felt with what success.
In the following pages, I have shown,
that those courts of judicature (which, far from being the immediate organs of the monarchs of France, as the same member asserts, were, for the greater part of the last century, in constant opposition to them, and the organs of rebellion) had conspired to effect the destruction of the Jesuits; and, I suspect, that "the mass of information," which supplies the proofs of the nascent revolutionary spirit, and which is to be met with in the histories of all Europe, are documents resulting from the piques and resentments of Pombal and other arbitrary ministers, who chose to take the consciences of their princes under their own care. These documents, afforded indeed by a most respected character, are nevertheless open to all the objections that arise from the principles and history of the intrigues of the ordinances alluded to. There is however some decency in recurring to
ordinances to found charges upon; the enemies of the Jesuits were not always so nice, as the following extract from one of their calumniators will show:—"When the Jesuits revolutionized Portugal, in 1667, and placed on the throne the infant don Pedro, sir Robert Southwell was there, as our ambassador from Charles II. His very curious correspondence with the duke of Ormond and lord Arlington is extant, and is a precious fragment of a great political event. The silent intrigues of the Jesuits do not seem to have been known to sir Robert; but, according to the Recueil Chronologique, published by the court of Portugal, it is evident they were the principal actors, who, having overturned the monarchy, afterwards suppressed the democracy, and then, substituting an apparent aristocracy, reigned for some time over Portugal, concealed under that
cloak." This is a fine specimen of the warfare carried on against the society. The ambassador's ignorance of the intrigues of the Jesuits is not brought forward as a proof of their innocence, but as a reason why we should believe Pombal. As to the revolutionizing Portugal, and placing don Pedro on the throne, the ambassador could have been no stranger to the real causes of don Pedro's being proclaimed regent during the life of his brother Alonzo, from the incapacity of the latter, and the intrigues, first of his mother, and afterwards of his wife, the princess of Nemours.
I would here leave the reader, with this fact fresh on his mind, to enter upon the book before him, but that I wish to detain him a moment longer to request him to carry also along with him the asseveration
of the author, that he is entirely unconnected with the individuals of the body, whose character it is the object of this volume to place in a just point of view. Though familiar with accounts of the society, I am unacquainted with a single individual of it. The interest I feel is that which has been inspired by their virtues, and by the injustice and cruelty of their enemies, which I have ascertained to my complete conviction.