with the first principles of subordination and government. The Jesuits set themselves to instruct and to civilize these savages; they taught them to cultivate the ground, to rear tame animals, and to build houses; they brought them to live together in villages; they trained them to arts and manufactures; they made them taste the sweets of society, and accustomed them to the blessings of security and order. These people became the subjects of their benefactors, who have governed them with a tender attention, resembling that with which a father directs his children. Respected and beloved almost to adoration, a few Jesuits presided over some hundred thousand Indians. They maintained a perfect equality among all the members of the community. Each of them was obliged to labour, not for himself alone, but for the public. The produce of their fields, together with the fruits of their industry, of every species, were deposited in common storehouses, from which each individual received every thing necessary for the supply of his wants. By this institution, almost all the passions which disturb the peace of society, and render the members of it unhappy, were extinguished. A few magistrates, chosen from among their countrymen by the Indians themselves, watched over the public tranquillity, and secured obedience to the laws. The sanguinary punishments frequent under other governments were unknown. An admonition from a Jesuit, a slight mark of infamy, or, on some singular occasion, a few lashes with a whip, were sufficient to maintain good order among these innocent and happy people". BOOK VI. 1540. But, even in this meritorious effort of the Jesuits for the Even here good of mankind, the genius and spirit of their order the ambi tion and pohave mingled, and are discernible. They plainly aimed licy of the at establishing in Paraguay an independent empire, sub-order is ject to the society alone, and which, by the superior excellence of its constitution and police, could scarcely have Hist. du Paraguay par Pere de Charlevoix, tom. ii, 42, &c. Voyage au Perou par Don G. Juan et D. Ant. de Ulloa, tom. i, 540, &c. Par. 4to, 1752. cernible. VI. 1540. BOOK failed to extend its dominion over all the southern continent of America, With this view, in order to prevent the Spaniards or Portuguese in the adjacent settlements from acquiring any dangerous influence over the people within the limits of the province subject to the society, the Jesuits endeavoured to inspire the Indians with hatred and contempt of these nations; they cut off all intercourse between their subjects and the Spanish or Portuguese settlements; they prohibited any private trader, of either nation, from entering their territories. When they were obliged to admit any person in a public character from the neighbouring governments, they did not permit him to have any conversation with their subjects; and no Indian was allowed even to enter the house where these strangers resided, unless in the presence of a Jesuit. In order to render any communication between them as difficult as possible, they industriously avoided giving the Indians any knowledge of the Spanish, or of any other European language; but encouraged the different tribes which they had civilized to acquire a certain dialect of the Indian tongue, and laboured to make that the universal language throughout their dominions. As all these precautions, without military force, would have been insufficient to have rendered their empire secure and permanent, they instructed their subjects in the European arts of war. They formed them into bodies of cavalry and infantry, completely armed, and regularly disciplined. They provided a great train of artillery, as well as magazines stored with all the implements of war. Thus they established an army, so numerous and wellappointed, as to be formidable in a country where a few sickly and ill-disciplined battalions composed all the military force kept on foot by the Spaniards or Portuguesec. The Jesuits gained no considerable degree of power giving so full a view during the reign of Charles V.; who, with his usual saof the go- gacity, discerned the dangerous tendency of the instituand proVoyage de Juan et de Ulloa, tom. i, 549. Recueil des toutes les gress of the Pieces qui ont paru sur les Affaires des Jesuites en Portugal; tom. 1, order. p. 7, &c, Reason for vernment BOOK VI. tion, and checked its progress. But as the order was founded in the period of which I write the history, and as the age to which I address this work hath seen its fall, 1540. the view which I have exhibited of the laws and genius of this formidable body will not, I hope, be unacceptable to my readers, especially as one circumstance has enabled me to enter into this detail with particular advantage. Europe had observed, for two centuries, the ambition and power of the order. But, while it felt many fatal effects of these, it could not fully discern the causes to which they were to be imputed. It was unacquainted with many of the singular regulations in the political constitution or government of the Jesuits, which formed the enterprising spirit of intrigue that distinguished its members, and elevated the body itself to such a height of power. It was a fundamental maxim with the Jesuits, from their first institution, not to publish the rules of their order. These they kept concealed as an impenetrable mystery; they never communicated them to strangers, nor even to the greater part of their own members; they refused to produce them, when required by courts of justice; and, by a strange solecism in policy, the civil power in different countries authorised or connived at the establishment of an order of men, whose constitution and laws were concealed with a solicitude which alone was a good reason for excluding them. During the prosecutions lately carried on against them in Portugal and France, the Jesuits have been so inconsiderate as to produce the mysterious volumes of their institute. By the aid of these authentic records the principles of their government may be delineated, and the sources of their power investigated, with a degree of certainty and precision which, previous to that event, it was impossible to attain. But, as I have a Compte par M. de Moncl. p. 312. • Hist. des Jes. tom. iii, 236, &c. Compte par M. de Chalot. p. 38. The greater part of my information concerning the government and laws of the order of Jesuits, I have derived from the reports of M. de Chalatais and M. de Monclar. 1 rest not my narrative, however, upon VI 1540. FOCK pointed out the dangerous tendency of the constitution and spirit of the order, with the freedom becoming an historian, the candour and impartiality no less requisite in that character call on me to add one observation, that no class of regular clergy in the Romish church has been more eminent for decency, and even purity of manners, than the major part of the order of Jesuits 5. The maxims of an intriguing, ambitious, interested policy, might influence those who governed the society, and might even corrupt the heart and pervert the conduct of some individuals, while the greater number, engaged in literary pursuits, or employed in the functions of religion, was left to the guidance of those common principles which restrain men from vice, and excite them to what is becoming and laudable. The causes which occasioned the ruin of this mighty body, as well as the circumstances and effects with which it has been attended in the different countries of Europe, though objects extremely worthy the attention of every intelligent observer of human affairs, do not fall within the period of this history. Affairs of No sooner had Charles re-established order in the Low Countries, than he was obliged to turn his attention to the affairs in Germany. The Protestants pressed him earnestly to appoint that conference between a select number of the divines of each party, which had been stipulated in the convention at Franciort. The pope considered such an attempt to examine into the points in dispute, or to decide concerning them, as derogatory to his right of being the supreme judge in controversy; and being convinced that such a conference would either be ineffectual by determining nothing, or prove dangerous by determining too much, he employed every art to prevent it. The emperor the authority even of these respectable magistrates and elegant writers, but upon innumerable passages which they have extracted from the constitutions of the order, deposited in their hands. Hospinian, a Protestant divine of Zurich, in his Historia Jesuitica, printed A. D. 1619, published a small part of the constitutions of the Jesuits, of which, by some accident, he had got a copy; p. 13-54. Sur la Destruct. des Jes. par M. d'Alembert, p. 55. VI. :540. A confer tween the divines, however, finding it more for his interest to sooth the BOCK Germans than to gratify Paul, paid little regard to his remonstrances, In a diet held at Haguenaw matters were ripened for the conference. In another diet assembled at eace beWorms the conference was begun, Melancthon on the one pish and side, and Eckius on the other, sustaining the principal Protestant part in the dispute; but, after they had made some pro- June 25. gress, though without concluding any thing, it was sus- Dec. 6. pended, by the emperor's command, that it might be renewed with greater solemnity in his own presence, in a diet summoned to meet at Ratisbon. This assembly was opened with great pomp, and with a general expectation 1541. that its proceedings would be vigorous and decisive. By the consent of both parties the emperor was entrusted with the power of nominating the persons who should manage the conference, which it was agreed should be. conducted, not in the form of a public disputation, but as a friendly scrutiny or examination into the articles which had given rise to the present controversies. He appointed Eckius, Gropper, and Pflug, on the part of the Catholics; Melancthon, Bucer, and Pistorius, on that of the Protestants; all men of distinguished reputation among their own adherents, and, except Eckius, all eminent for moderation as well as desirous of peace. As they were about to begin their consultations, the emperor put into their hands a book, composed, as he said, by a learned divine in the Low Countries, with such extraordinary perspicuity and temper as, in his opinion, might go far to unite and comprehend the two contending parties. Gropper, a canon of Cologne, whom he had named among the managers of the conference, a man of address as well as of erudition, was afterwards suspected to be the author of this short treatise. It contained positions with regard to twenty-two of the chief articles in theology, which included most of the questions then agitated in the controversy between the Lutherans and the church of Rome. By ranging his sentiments in a natural order, and expressing them with great simplicity; by employing often |