What thinking man shall now wonder, that the much tried pontiff, Pius VII, having, during his captivity, seriously pondered the connexion of causes and effects, should wish to retrieve the ancient order of things, should even hasten to second the wishes and requests of his fellow sufferers—I mean the surviving princes and prelates, who so sorely rue the mistakes of their immediate predecessors? It is very remarkable, that the false policy of these latter was first discerned and publicly disapproved by two acute sovereigns, who were not of the Roman communion, the magnanimous Catherine of
Russia, and the far famed Frederic III, of Prussia. These sovereigns were not ignorant of the various artifices, which had distorted the good sense of the catholic princes. They knew how to elude and disappoint them, when they were practised upon themselves. The empress Catherine especially, in despite of Rome, Versailles, Lisbon, and Madrid, maintained, with a resolute and strong hand, the several houses of Jesuits, which she found in her new Polish dominions; she would not suffer even the smallest alteration to be made, in any of their statutes or practices. Her two successors have settled them in their capital, and in other parts of their empire; and at this day, the glorious Alexander, far from mistrusting those fathers, openly cherishes and favours them, at once as blameless ministers of the catholic religion, and as trusty servants of government, earnestly labouring to endear the new sceptre of the czars to the catholic Poles, lately united to their empire[[120]].
Most undoubtedly, next to the purity of religion, the best and dearest interest of the Jesuits always was, and always must be, public tranquillity, order, and subordination of ranks. In tumults and confusion, they must unavoidably be sacrificed. To favour the daring projects of civil and religious innovators, their body was devoted to destruction; and the extinction of it was presently followed by the universal uproar of the Gallic revolution. Hence their name is odious to Buonaparte. In his progress through Germany, he drove them from Ausburg, and Friburg, and other towns, where the magistrates and inhabitants had succeeded to preserve a small remnant of their body, though without hope of perpetuating it by succession. In 1805 the court of Naples, convinced of its past error, reinstated the Jesuits, to the universal joy of the capital; and immediately Napoleon seized
the kingdom, and dismissed them. Other princes have equally regretted the rash deed of their destruction. Even the emperor Joseph II once assured me in private conversation, that he much lamented the suppression of the order of the Jesuits. He repeatedly said, that, in his mother's time, in which it was accomplished, he was never consulted upon the measure, and that he would never have acceded to it.
Our country has happily escaped the horrors of modern revolution; but our country has had its alarms. To prevent the recurrence of them, it must surely be sound policy to trust, favour, and protect all those persons, who, from a motive of self-preservation, as well as of duty, will always employ their influence among the lower orders of society, to maintain peace and tranquillity in the several religious classes, which form the bulk of the people, however denominated. With regard to the numerous body of catholics, this line of conduct has been uniformly pursued by their Irish bishops, by the
English apostolic vicars, and by all the missionary priests, Jesuits, and other regulars, who have appeared among us: and, I add, in finishing, that, in this respect, they would all be co-operators and steady allies of the bishops and clergy of the establishment, who can have no greater interest, at the present day, than to preserve general tranquillity. Protestant and catholic prelates, with their respective dependants, all equally professing zeal for purity of doctrine, though differing in their tenets, would thus be friends usque ad aras, and general peace would be the precious fruits of their agreement. Thus we have often seen catholic and protestant legions, Austrians and British, arrayed under the same banners, and successfully pursuing their warfare against a common enemy. This matter is susceptible of extension, but Laicus would not understand it. I finish this Letter, as I ended the first, seriously advising him to meddle no more with this subject.
CLERICUS.