mber 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, {xvi} 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 {xvii} 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 {xviii} 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, an