for them[102]."
Quere, from whom did he obtain it? From the pope? In what bullarium then
may the grant be found? Did Jesuits ever attempt to use this _right_? Did
secular sovereigns quietly acquiesce in such a glaring usurpation of their
most undoubted right? Of what avail could such a privilege have been to the
Jesuits, who always had the power to dismiss refractory members from their
society, as they dismissed Jerom Zarowicz, Antonio de Dominis, abbe Raynal,
and many others? Poor Laicus cannot answer one of these questions. He has
disclaimed all pretension to novelty; he is satisfied with copying
malignity; and, to the shame of the Encyclopedia Britannica, he has
transcribed this impudent forgery from vol. ix of that work (_page_ 510,
_art. Laines_), where, without a shadow of proof or of probability, it is
roundly stated, that "Laines, {291} general of the Jesuits, procured from
pope Paul IV the privilege of having prisons independent of the secular
authority, in which they (the Jesuits) put to death refractory brethren."
4. "One peculiar object of the society is to direct and aid the operations
of the Inquisition[103]." It is not easy to ascertain the precise source of
this falsehood. Probably it is not borrowed from foreign libels, because,
in all catholic countries, it was universally known, that Jesuits never had
any concern in the administration, or proceedings, of the Inquisition. 5.
"The Jesuits usurped the sovereignty of Paraguay, and held the Indians in
slavery[104]." This has been a thousand times said; and it has been as
often demonstrated, to the satisfaction of impartial inquirers, that the
Jesuits were the steady friends and defenders of the liberty of the
Indians, and that the success of their missions in South America was a
glorious triumph of {292} humanity and religion, hardly to be equalled in
the history of the Christian church. 6. "They formed two conspiracies
against king Joseph of Portugal, and his whole family[105]." In spite of
the prepotency of the cruel minister Pombal, truth has prevailed, and the
world remains convinced, that not even one conspiracy was ever formed
against king Joseph of Portugal, either by Jesuits, or by any other
persons. 7. "The Jesuits beheaded eighty Frenchmen and hung five hundred
friars for maintaining the rights of Anthony king of Portugal, in the
island of Tercera, where they had compelled him to take refuge, after
having disposed of his crown[106]." All this is a b