k in the way of the catholic nobility
and gentry; they attend solely to their own professional concerns; and, as
peaceable and loyal subjects, they may justly expect protection for their
persons and for their property. Friends of the government and of the
country, friends of monarchy, friends of public tranquillity, friends of
order and {228} subordination, friends of religion, friends of morality,
friends of letters, shall they not be protected? Ignorance, prejudice, and
passion, shall not prevail against such men.

* * * * *

{229}

CHAPTER IV.

_Character of Pombal. Summary Observations, and a brief notice of the
tendency and danger of Education independent of Religion._

The success of the old conspiracy against the Jesuits will not be wondered
at, when we reflect upon the character of the age in which it was formed,
and on the means that were used to mature it. Ignorance was the lot of the
generality of men: despotism pervaded courts, and tools were never wanting
to shape events to the will of the powerful. Of the parliaments, the
university, and of the Jansenists, enough has been said to show the
inveteracy and malignity with which they carried on their unjust
persecutions of the society, and to expose the {230} causes of their
conduct; but, in the mention which has occasionally been made of the
Portuguese minister Carvalho, marquis of Pombal, the great persecutor of
the Jesuits, too little has been said to account for his hatred of them; I
will, therefore, here, make him the subject of a few pages.

During the reign of John V, the Jesuits were in high favour at the court of
Lisbon. That king expired in the arms of the famous Malagrida. Carvalho was
then a real or pretended friend of the society. The Jesuits, whom king John
consulted, recommended him, with little forecast, for the embassies of
London and Vienna, and, afterwards, to his successor, Joseph I, as prime
minister. He soon, however, betrayed his jealousy of the power and credit
of the Jesuits; and he determined to effect their ruin. The first
opportunity of persecuting them arose from the treaty with Spain, for an
exchange of lands and fixing new boundaries in South America, the motive of
which we have {231} already seen. The disorder, that ensued among the
Indians, the marquis imputed to the influence and ambition of the Jesuits;
whence arose the absurd fable of the Jesuit king Nicolas, and of the
project a