Following this letter and its translation appeared a list of the officers and members, resident and non-resident, of Wisdom Lodge, Portsmouth, Virginia, with explanatory data in each instance, covering such points as age, place of birth, profession, etc., the whole concluding with a representation of the seal of Wisdom Lodge and the following motto: Amplius Homines oculis quam auribus credunt. Iter longum est per precepta, breve et efficax per exempla.[779]
Upon these documents Morse saw fit to make and publish certain “Explanatory Remarks,”[780] of which the following is the gist.
The Lodge Wisdom in Portsmouth, Virginia, is seen to be a branch of the Grand Orient of France. Its members consist chiefly of foreigners, that is to say, Frenchmen,—Frenchmen who come either from France or from the West India possessions of that country. From the seal it appears that Wisdom Lodge was established as early as 1786. It is also, as its number shows, “the TWO THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND SIXTIETH branch from the original stock.”[781] It further appears that there is a sister lodge in the city of New York, styled the Grand Orient of New York. The latter, from the name and number of the lodges it has instituted, is quite likely the first and principal branch that the Mother Club in France has established in America. This New York lodge has established the French lodge, Union, to which the letter from the lodge Wisdom was addressed. As to the other thirteen branches from the parent stock, for the present there could be nothing more than conjecture as to their location.[782]
The documents also show that an intimate correspondence is maintained between the lodges in America and those in St. Domingo; also between the American lodges and the Grand Orient in France. It further appears that Wisdom Lodge has a regular deputy in the membership of the Grand Orient of France. Lists of names are exchanged between the two societies, so that their members may be fully known to each other.[783]
Masons to whom these documents issuing from Wisdom Lodge have been shown declare that the organization is not truly Masonic. The titles of its officers, its seal and motto, they affirm, are not regular. Thus the lodge in Portsmouth has been pronounced spurious by well-informed Masons.[784]
Wisdom Lodge, it appears, has one hundred members. Counting all the others referred to in the documents, there are seventeen lodges in all. Assuming that these have an equal number of members, it may be said that there are at least seventeen hundred Illuminati in the United States, all bound together by oath and intimate correspondence.[785] Beyond these there are to be considered, of course, the many thousands of Frenchmen scattered through the United States, all perhaps “combined and organized (with other foreigners and some disaffected and unprincipled Americans) in these societies, … regularly instructed and directed by their masters in France, and … systematically conducting the plan of revolutionizing this country.”[786]
The principles and objects of this organization may be partly deduced from the motto and seal of Wisdom Lodge. The literal rendering of the former is not so significant as its spirit, which is best expressed in the following liberal translation: “Men more readily believe what they see than what they hear. They are taught slowly by precept, but the effect of example is sudden and powerful.”[787] From this it may be inferred that the organization was formed, “not for speculation, but for activity.” Precepts are scorned; actions are accepted as the only quick method of teaching mankind and of producing a change in their opinions. The change in opinions which the organization contemplates must have to do with government and religion. It cannot have to do with the minds of its members, for the society is secret and designs to work secretly. “The changes which they can produce by secret influence and intrigue, the novel arts which they can thus exhibit before the eyes of men, are doubtless to be the efficaceous means of teaching men the new system of philosophy, which sets at defiance, and contemns all old and settled opinions, by which the government of nations and the conduct of individuals have heretofore been directed.”[788]
As to the organization’s seal, no description can do it justice.[789] A view of its square and compass, pillars, and skull and cross-bones best indicates its horrid nature.[790]
Fortified by these documents, and flanked by the testimonies of Robison and Barruel,[791] Morse concluded his presentment in the following energetic manner: