An effort to marshal the internal evidence of the book’s credibility is next promised by Morse.[690] This anticipation remained a promise, however, for the disingenuous reason that Morse offered that a book which has met such a flattering reception as Robison’s Proofs absolves its friends and supporters of the necessity of defending its contents as well as the authenticity of the documents from which it has been drawn. The burden of proof rests upon those who have nothing to offer against the work in question but bold assertions, contemptuous sneers, and vilifying epithets.[691] Professor Robison’s critics have failed to take sufficient account of the fact that he was engaged in a delicate and arduous undertaking. He was attempting to unveil a deep and dark conspiracy.[692] It is not pretended that all the links in the chain of evidence have been discovered; nor is it claimed that there has been an entire absence of confusion, disconnection, and imperfection in the work of ferreting out the conspiracy. But certainly enough has been accomplished to merit confidence in the effort, and to justify serious alarm on the part of the friends of the civil and religious interests of the country.[693]
This, it need scarcely be said, did not amount to a satisfactory handling of the case. In truth, from the standpoint of the main issue involved, viz., the reliability of Robison’s “proofs,” it was little more than so much dust thrown into the air. Evidence had been asked for. In its place arguments, and it must be confessed very inconclusive arguments at that, were submitted. The vital questions in the case had scarcely been touched. Were the Illuminati still in existence? If so, did they actually aim at the universal overthrow of religion and civil government? Was the French Revolution the result of their machinations? More momentous still to the interests of Americans, had the net of conspiracy been thrown over this country, with the result that nefarious secret organizations were at work among her people, corrupting them and plotting the downfall of their institutions? No definite, independent word had yet been spoken in America in answer to these questions. Thus far the issue was joined over the merits or demerits of a book,[694]—a book that had recently come across the Atlantic and whose readers in America, according as they were credulous or incredulous, boldly asserted or as vehemently denied that the questions which have just been propounded should be answered in the affirmative.
Thus matters stood in the early fall of 1798. The newspapers generally had begun to take hold of the subject, and the volume of public discussion steadily increased. But as to progress in the clarifying of the fundamental questions at issue, no advance was made. No additional facts were forthcoming; no new light was shed. The alarm that Morse and his allies had raised may be said to have been something like a ship which has been able to make its way out as far as the harbor mouth, but lingers there becalmed, waiting for a favoring gale to speed it on its way. Or was it that the winds were ample, but wholly unfavorable? In the late summer and the fall of 1798 practically every other public interest in New England was eclipsed by two surpassingly important concerns: the bitter agitation over the Alien and Sedition Acts, and the distress and terror of the people over the ravages of an epidemic of yellow fever which was sweeping the towns and cities of the Atlantic seaboard, extending well up along the New England coast.
2. INCONCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENTS OF MORSE’S SECOND FORMAL DELIVERANCE
With the approach of the anniversary thanksgiving in Massachusetts, late in November, 1798, public discussion of the Illuminati broke out afresh. Once more the columns of the Massachusetts Mercury became the chief medium of communication. Stirred, it appears, by the announcement from abroad that the first three volumes of the Abbé Barruel’s Memoirs of Jacobinism had been translated into English, a contributor to the Mercury took occasion to comment at length on the marvelous corroboratory evidence which that work was about to supply to the English reading public with respect to the great and terrible conspiracy which Professor Robison had laid bare.[695]
This advance commendation of Barruel’s composition was not destined to be received with unanimous approval. “A Friend to Truth” was unable to restrain the impulse to exclaim:
The paper signed “A Customer” could find but one man contemptible enough to write it. It has his ignominy and his guilt…. No excuse can be made for the late publication. If Barruel’s work be not yet in America, why not wait till it comes? … The public are cautioned against all anonymous defamers, from whom our Country has suffered its greatest evils.[696]
Time and space were claimed by this writer to call attention also to alleged discrepancies of a serious nature between Robison’s account of the rise of the Illuminati and its early relations with Freemasonry and the account of the same matters by Barruel, as reflected in English reviews of the latter’s work. Quite incidentally “A Friend to Truth” threw out the suggestion that Robison was not always in command of his reason.[697]