of converted Indians." The bull extended the prohibition generally to the monkish orders, to avoid branding the Jesuits especially. But a bull of more direct reprehension was published at the close of the year, expressly against the Jesuits in their missions in the east and west. The language of this document amounts to a catalogue of the most atrocious offences against society, humanity, and morals. By this bull, "all men, and especially Jesuits," are prohibited, under penalty of excommunication, from "making slaves of the Indians; from selling and bartering them; from separating them from their wives and children; from robbing them of their property; from transporting them from their native soil," &c.

Nothing but the strongest necessity, and the most ample evidence, would ever have drawn this condemnation from Rome, whether sincere or insincere. But the urgencies of the case became more evident from day to day. In 1758, the condemnation was followed by the practical measure of appointing Cardinal Saldanha visitor and reformer of the Jesuits in Portugal, and the Portuguese settlements in the east and west.

Within two months of this appointment the following decree was issued:

"For just reasons known to us, and which concern especially the service of God and the public welfare, we suspend from the power of confessing and preaching, in the whole extent of our patriarchate, the fathers of the Society of Jesus, from this moment, and until further notice." Saldanha had been just raised to the patriarchate.

We have given some observations on this subject, from its peculiar importance to the British empire at this moment. The order of the Jesuits, extinguished in the middle of the last century by the unanimous demand of Europe, charged with every crime which could make a great association obnoxious to mankind, and exhibiting the most atrocious violations of the common rules of human morality, has, within this last quarter of a century, been revived by the papacy, with the express declaration, that its revival is for the exclusive purpose of giving

new effect to the doctrines, the discipline, and the power of Rome. The law which forbids the admission of Jesuits into England, has shared the fate of all laws feebly administered; and Jesuits are active by hundreds or by thousands in every portion of the empire. They have restored the whole original system, sustained by all their habitual passion for power, and urging their way, with all their ancient subtlety, through all ranks of Protestantism.

The courage and intelligence of Pombal placed him in the foremost rank of Europe, when the demand was the boldest and most essential service which a great minister could offer to his country; he broke the power of Jesuitism. But an order so numerous-for even within the life of its half-frenzied founder it amounted to 19,000-so vindictive, and flung from so lofty a rank of influence, could not perish without some desperate attempts to revenge its ruin. The life of Pombal was so constantly in danger, that the king actually assigned him a body guard. But the king himself was exposed to one of the most remarkable plots of regicide on record—the memorable Aveiro and Tavora conspiracy.

On the night of the 3d of September 1758, as the king was returning to the palace at night in a cabriolet, attended only by his valet, two men on horseback, and armed with blunderbusses, rode up to the carriage, and leveled their weapons at the monarch. One of them missed fire, the other failed of its effect. The royal postilion, in alarm, rushed forward, when two men, similarly waiting in the road, galloped after the carriage, and both fired their blunderbusses into it behind. The cabriolet was riddled with slugs, and the king was wounded in several places. By an extraordinary presence of mind, Don Joseph, instead of ordering the postilion to gallop onward, directed him instantly to turn back, and, to avoid alarming the palace, carry him direct to the house of the court surgeon. By this fortunate order, he escaped the other groups of the conspirators, who were stationed further on the road, and under whose repeated discharges he would probably have fallen.

The public alarm and indignation on the knowledge of this desperate atrocity were unbounded. There seemed to be but one man in the kingdom who preserved his composure, and that one was Pombal. Exhibiting scarcely even the natural perturbation at an event which had threatened almost a national convulsion, he suffered the whole to become a matter of doubt, and allowed the king's retirement from the public eye to be considered as merely the effect of accident. The public despatch of Mr Hay, the British envoy at Lisbon, alludes to it, chiefly as assigning a reason for the delay of a court mourning -the order for this etiquette, on the death of the Spanish queen, not having been put in execution. The envoy mentions that it had been impeded by the king's illness," it being the custom of the court to put on gala when any of the royal family are blooded. When I went to court to enquire after his majesty's health, I was there informed that the king, on Sunday night the 3d instant, passing through a gallery to go to the queen's apart ment, had the misfortune to fall and bruise his right arm; he had been blooded eight different times; and, as his majesty is a fat bulky man, to prevent any humours fixing there, his physicians have advised that he should not use his arm, but abstain from business for some time. In consequence, the queen was declared regent during Dom Joseph's illness."

This was the public version of the event. But appended to the despatch was a postscript, in cipher, stating the reality of the transaction. Pombal's sagacity, and his self-control, perhaps a still rarer quality among the possessors of power, were exhibited in the strongest light on this occasion. For three months not a single step appeared to be taken to punish, or even to detect the assassins. The subject was allowed to die away; when, on the 9th of December, all Portugal was startled by a royal decree, declaring the crime, and offering rewards for the seizure of the assassins. Some days afterwards Lisbon heard, with astonishment, an order for the arrest of the Duke of Aveira, one of the first nobles, and master of the royal household; the arrest of the whole

family of the Marquis of Tavora, himself, his two sons, his four brothers, and his two sons-in-law. Other nobles were also seized; and the Jesuits were forbidden to be seen out of their houses.

The three months of Pombal's apparent inaction had been incessantly employed in researches into the plot. Extreme caution was evidently necessary, where the criminals were among the highest officials and nobles, seconded by the restless and formidable machinations of the Jesuits. When his proofs were complete, he crushed the conspirators at a single grasp. His singular inactivity had disarmed them; and nothing but the most consummate composure could have prevented their flying from justice. On the 12th of January 1759, they were found guilty; and on the 13th they were put to death, to the number of nine, with the Marchioness of Tavora, in the square of Belem. The scaffold and the bodies were burned, and the ashes thrown into the sea.

Those were melancholy acts; the works of melancholy times. But as no human crime can be so fatal to the security of a state as regicide, no imputation can fall on the memory of a great minister, compelled to exercise justice in its severity, for the protection of all orders of the kingdom. In our more enlightened period, we must rejoice that those dreadful displays of judicial power have passed away; and that laws are capable o being administered without the tortures, or the waste of life, which agonize the feelings of society. Yet, while blood for blood continued to be the code; while the sole prevention of crime was sought for in the security of judgment; and while even the zeal of justice against guilt was measured by the terrible intensity of the punishment we must charge the horror of such sweeping executions to the ignorance of the age, much more than to the vengeance of power.

This tragedy was long the subject of European memory; and all the extravagance of popular credulity was let loose in discovering the causes of the conspiracy. It was said, in the despatches of the English minister, that the Marquis of Tavora, who had been Portuguese minister in the

East, was irritated by the royal attentions to his son's wife. Ambition was the supposed ground of the Duke of Aveira's perfidy. The old Marchioness of Tavora, who had been once the handsomest woman at court, and was singularly vain and haughty, was presumed to have received some personal offence, by the rejection of the family claim to a dukedom. All is wrapped in the obscurity natural to transactions in which individuals of rank are involved in the highest order of crime. It was the natural policy of the minister to avoid extending the charges by explaining the origin of the crime. The connexions of the traitors were still many and powerful; and further disclosures might have produced only further attempts at the assassination of the minister or the king.

It was now determined to act with vigour against the Jesuits, who were distinctly charged with assisting, if not originating, the treason. A succession of decrees were issued, depriving them of their privileges and possessions; and finally, on the 5th of October 1759, the cardinal patriarch Saldanha issued the famous mandate, by which the whole society was expelled from the Portuguese dominions. Those in the country were transported to Civita Vecchia; those in the colonies were also conveyed to the Papal territory; and thus, by the intrepidity, wisdom, and civil courage of one man, the realm was relieved from the presence of the most powerful and most dangerous body which had ever disturbed the peace of society.

Portugal having thus the honour of taking the lead, Rome herself at length followed; and, on the accession of the celebrated Ganganelli, Clement XIV., a resolution was adopted to suppress the Jesuits in every part of the world. On the 21st of July 1773, the memorable bull "Dominus ac Redemptor," was published, and the order was at an end. The announcement was received in Lisbon with natural rejoicing. Te Deum was sung, and the popular triumph was unbounded and universal.

We now hasten to the close of this distinguished minister's career. His frame, though naturally vigorous, began to feel the effects of his incessant

labour, and an apoplectic tendency threatened to shorten a life so essen. tial to the progress of Portugal; for that whole life was one of temperate and progressive reform. His first application was to the finances; he found the Portuguese exchequer on the verge of bankruptcy. A third of the taxes was embezzled in the collection. In 1761, his new system was adopted, by which the finances were restored; and every week a balancesheet of the whole national expenditure was presented to the king. His next reform was the royal household, where all unnecessary expenses-and they were numerous-were abolished. Another curious reform will be longer remembered in Portugal. The nation had hitherto used only the knife at dinner! Pombal introduced the fork. He brought this novel addition to the table with him from England in 1745!

The nobility were remarkably ignorant. Pombal formed the "College of Nobles" for their express education. There they were taught every thing suitable to their rank. The only prohibition being, "that they should not converse in Latin," the old pedantic custom of the monks. The nobles were directed to converse in English, French, Italian, or their native tongue; Pombal declaring, that the custom of speaking Latin was only "to teach them to barbarize."

Another custom, though of a more private order, attracted the notice of this. rational and almost universal improver. It had been adopted as a habit by the widows of the nobility, to spend the first years of their widowhood in the most miserable seclusion; they shut up their windows, retired to some gloomy chamber, slept on the floor, and, suffering all kinds of voluntary and absurd mortifications, forbade the approach of the world. As the custom was attended with danger to health, and often with death, besides its general melancholy influence on society, the minister publicly "enacted," that every part of it should be abolished; and, moreover, that the widows should always remove to another house; or, where this was not practicable, that they "should not close the shutters, nor mourn' for more than a week, nor remain at home for more than a month, nor

sleep on the ground." Doubtless, tens of thousands thanked him, and thank him still, for this war against a popular, but most vexatious, absurdity.

His next reform was the army. After the peace of 1763, he fixed it at 30,000 men, whom he equipped effectually, and brought into practical discipline.

A succession of laws, made for the promotion of European and colonial trade, next opened the resources of Portugal to an extent unknown before. Pombal next abolished the "Index Expurgitorius"—an extraordinary achievement, not merely beyond his age, but against the whole superstitious spirit of his age. He was not content with abolishing the restraint; he attempted to restore the PRESS in Portugal. Hitherto nearly all Portuguese books had been printed in foreign countries. He established a 66 Royal Press," and gave its superintendence to Pagliarini, a Roman printer, who had been expa. triated for printing works against the Jesuits. Such, in value and extent, were the acts which Portugal owed to this indefatigable and powerful mind, that when, in 1766, he suffered a paralytic stroke, the king and the people were alike thrown into consternation.

At length Don Joseph, the king, and faithful friend of Pombal, died, after a reign of twenty-seven years of honour and usefulness. Pombal requested to resign, and the Donna Maria accepted the resignation, and conferred various marks of honour upon him. He now retired to his country-seat, where Wraxall saw him in 1772, and thus describes his appearance. "At this time he had attained his seventy-third year, but age seemed to have diminished neither the freshness nor the activity of his faculties. In his person he was very tall and slender, his face long, pale, and meagre, but full of intelligence."

But Pombal had been too magnanimous for the court and nobles; and the loss of his power as minister produced a succession of intrigues against him, by the relatives of the Tavora family, and doubtless also by the ecclesiastical influence, which has always been at once so powerful and so prejudicial in Portugal. He was insulted by a trial, at which, however, the only sentence inflicted was an order to retire twenty leagues from the court. The Queen was, at that time, probably suffering under the first access of that derangement, which, in a few years after, utterly incapacitated her, and condemned the remainder of her life to melancholy and total solitude. But the last praise is not given to the great minister, while his personal disinterestedness is forgotten. One of the final acts of his life was to present to the throne a statement of his public income, when it appeared that, during the twenty-seven years of his administration, he had received no public emolument but his salary as secretary of state, and about L.100 a-year for another office. But he was rich; for, as his two brothers remained unmarried, their incomes were joined with his own. He lived, held in high respect and estimation by the European courts, to the great age of eighty-three, dying on the 5th of May without pain. A long inscription, yet in which the panegyric did not exceed the justice, was placed on his tomb. Yet a single sentence might have established his claim to the perpetual gratitude of his country and mankind

"Here lies the man who banished the Jesuits from Portugal."

Mr Smith's volume is intelligently written, and does much credit to his research and skill,

VOL. LVI. NO. CCCXLV,

ELNATHAN was a man of many cares, and every kind of wisdom, but one— the wisdom of knowing when he had wealth enough. He evidently loved accumulation; and the result was, that every hour of his existence was one of terror. Half the brokers and chief traders in France were already in prison; and yet he carried on the perilous game of commerce. He was known to be immensely opulent; and he must have regarded the day which passed over his head, without seeing his strong boxes put under the government seal, and himself thrown into some oubliette, as a sort of miracle. But he was now assailed by a new alarm. War with England began to be rumoured among the bearded brethren of the synagogue ; and Elnathan had ships on every sea, from Peru to Japan. Like Shakspeare's princely merchant

"His mind was tossing on the ocean, There where his argosies with portly sail,

Like signiors, and rich burghers of the flood.

Or, as it were, the pageants of the

sea,

Did overpower the petty traffickers, As they flew by them with their

woven wings."

The first shot fired would inevitably pour out the whole naval force of England, and his argosies would put their helms about, and steer for Portsmouth, Plymouth, and every port but a French one. If this formidable intelligence had awakened the haughtiness of the French government to a sense of public peril, what effect must it not have in the counting-house of a Iman whose existence was trade? While I was on my pillow, luxuriating in dreams of French fêtes, Paul and Virginia carried off to the clouds,

SHAKSPEARE.

and Parisian belles dancing cotillons in the bowers and pavilions of a Mahometan paradise, Elnathan spent the night at his desk, surrounded by his bustling generation of clerks, writing to correspondents at every point of the compass, and preparing insurances with the great London establishments; which I was to carry with me, though unacquainted with the transaction on which so many millions of francs hung trembling.

His morning face showed me, that whatever had been his occupation before I met him at the breakfast-table, it had been a most uneasy one. His powerful and rather handsome physiognomy had shrunk to half the size; his lips were livid, and his hand shook to a degree which made me ask, whether the news from Robespierre was unfavourable. But his assurance that all still went on well in that delicate quarter, restored my tranquillity, which was beginning to give way; and my only stipulation now was, that I should have an hour or two to spend at Vincennes before I took my final departure. The Jew was all astonishment; his long visage elongated at the very sound; he shook his locks, lifted up his large hands, and fixed his wide eyes on me with a look of mingled alarm and wonder, which would have been ludicrous if it had not been perfectly sincere.

"In the name of common sense, do you remember in what a country, and in what times, we live? Oh, those Englishmen! always thinking that they are in England. My young friend, you are clearly not fit for France, and the sooner you get out of it the better."