His last two hundred pages were devoted by Barruel to arguments shaped chiefly to show that the principles of the Revolutionary leaders were identical with the principles of the illuminated lodges;[593] that the successes of the Revolutionary armies, of Custine beyond the Rhine,[594] of Dumouriez in Belgium,[595] of Pichegru in Holland,[596] and of Bonaparte in Italy, in Malta, and in Egypt,[597] were explicable only on the ground of treacherous intrigues carried on by the agents of Illuminism; and that no country, moreover, need flatter itself it would escape the seductions and plots of the conspirators. The dragon’s teeth of revolution were already sown in Switzerland, in Sweden, in Russia, in Poland, in Austria, in Prussia, _and in America_.[598] With Barruel’s comment upon America,[599] our discussion of the _Memoirs of Jacobinism_ may well come to a close.
As the plague flies on the wings of the wind, so do their triumphant legions infect America. Their apostles have infused their principles into the submissive and laborious negroes; and St. Domingo and Guadaloupe have been converted into vast charnel houses for their inhabitants. So numerous were the brethren in North America, that Philadelphia and Boston trembled, lest _their rising constitution should be obliged to make way for that of the great club_; and if for a time the brotherhood has been obliged to shrink back into their hiding places, they are still sufficiently numerous to raise collections and transmit them to the insurgents of Ireland;[600] thus contributing toward that species of revolution which is the object of their ardent wishes in America.[601] God grant that the United States may not learn to their cost, that Republics are equally menaced with Monarchies; and that the immensity of the ocean is but a feeble barrier against the universal conspiracy of the Sect!
NOTE: The literary relationship between the works of Robison and Barruel is of sufficient interest and significance to warrant some comment. Robison’s volume was published before its author saw Barruel’s composition in its French text.[602] Later, Robison was moved to rejoice that Barruel had confirmed his main positions and contentions. A few things in the _Memoirs of Jacobinism_, however, impress him as startling. He confesses that he had never before heard the claim seriously made that “irreligion and unqualified Liberty and Equality are the genuine and original Secrets of Free Masonry, and the ultimatum of a regular progress through all its degrees.”[603] He is driven to assert that _this_ is not the secret of Masonry as he has learned it from other sources. Robison also recognizes differences in the two works respecting the exposition of certain Masonic degrees. For his part he is not willing to admit that his sources are unreliable.[604]