suffer for the salvation of souls. He would undoubtedly, and that very
soon, lay aside former prejudices, and, perhaps, what he had seen would
suffice {142} to make him renounce his error." After enumerating, briefly,
the charges against the Jesuits of America, such as their making themselves
petty princes; engrossing the commerce of Paraguay; becoming dangerously
wealthy and powerful; bribing governors; robbing the Indians, under cover
of pleasing God, &c. &c., he says, "This is an abstract of the defamatory
reports spread about the world, either by word of mouth, or printed libels,
against the missionaries of Paraguay. I will advance nothing without clear
proofs. I am not afraid of affirming, that all these imputations are
calumnies and detestable forgeries, suggested by envy and malice." He then
proceeds to prove them to be such[55].

{143}

GROTIUS, LEIBNITZ, BACON.

This triumvirate of religion and genuine philosophy were friends and
admirers of the Jesuits; they are cited or referred to in the following
Letters, I shall therefore be satisfied with naming them here.

FREDERIC THE GREAT.

"Frederic," says the elegant scholar already twice quoted[56], "in spite of
his sceptical vanity, appeared sometimes to be convinced of the dangerous
principles of all those false philosophers, whose adulatory attentions he
was weak enough to be pleased with. In one of these moments, in which his
good sense retained the ascendency over his self-love, when the news
reached him of the proscription of the Jesuits in France, by the
confidential agents of supreme authority: 'Poor souls,' said he, 'they have
destroyed the foxes, which defended them from the jaws of the {144} wolves,
and they do not perceive that they are about to be devoured.'" Whomever the
king of Prussia meant by the wolves, it is well known, that the same
parliament that devoured the Jesuits in 1764, were equally disposed to
devour the episcopal body in 1765.

DR. JOHNSON. DEAN KIRWAN.

It is very common to speak of superstition as a shade in the character of
Johnson; and, no doubt, a modern philosopher will object to the authority
of one so bigoted as to declare, "that monasteries have something congenial
to the mind of man." Such objections, however, shall not divert me from
enrolling him here; for, the opinion he expressed relative to the
destruction of the Jesuits was the result, not of any superstitious motive,
but of that penetration, which was not to be