It was then submitted to the King that the Jesuits were conspiring to replace him on the throne by his brother Louis. One of our best authorities, Coxe, declares that a forged letter in this sense, purporting to come from General Ricci to the heads of the Spanish Jesuits, was used amongst the evidence. However that may be, the King was convinced, a searching inquiry was made into the condition and activity of the Society, and the King entrusted to the willing hands of Aranda the task of destroying it. Aranda realised that secrecy was essential to success, and he and a few confidential colleagues stealthily drew up the indictment of the Society. Such precautions had to be taken to outwit the Jesuit spies that the minister would take pen and ink in his pocket, in order that it should not be known that the King was signing a document. By the beginning of 1767 it was decided to banish the Jesuits from the Spanish dominions, and Aranda set to work to arrange the expulsion without giving the Jesuits an opportunity to provoke a rising in their favour. Sealed orders were sent to the local officials all over the empire, and it was strictly enjoined under pain of death that they were not to be opened until the evening of 2nd April.[28]
By the end of March the Jesuits must have been aware that some grave step against them was meditated, but the secret was well kept and the plan carried out to the letter. Some time after midnight on 2nd April the troops silently gathered round the six Jesuit colleges at Madrid and all the other houses and residences of the Society. The sentence was carried out simultaneously, with perfect order. The astounded Jesuits awoke to find a soldier and official in every cell, and they were ordered to dress and proceed to the refectory. There the royal decree of banishment was read to the assembled community, and they were promptly conducted by the troops, with such small personal possessions as their breviaries and their tobacco, to the appointed port. They were put in separate carriages, and carefully secluded from each other and the people until they were aboard ship. It seems that Aranda's precautions were excessive. The Jesuits complain rather of the harshness of the soldiers than attempt to discover any sympathy to which they might appeal. Sympathy and anger there were, of course, as well as delirious rejoicing, when the fall of the Society became known. But before the country had fully realised that the proud Society had been doomed to exile by a Spanish king, the 6000 Jesuits of Spain and its colonies were mournfully crossing the Mediterranean, in overcrowded vessels, toward the coast of the papal states. A pension was allotted to each out of their confiscated property, but they were informed that the pensions of all would cease if one of their number ventured to assail Spain and defend the Society; this was not an unjust measure in view of the fact that no Jesuit could publish without authority.