LONDON: Printed by S. & J. BENTLEY, WILSON and FLEY, Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
[1] The pamphlet alluded to was intituled “A Letter to his Grace the Duke of Grafton, First Commissioner of his Majesty’s Treasury.” Editions were printed at London, Paris, and Berlin. It bears with less severity on the Duke than on Lord Chatham, who is held up to public ridicule and scorn as an apostate to the cause of liberty, and “the abject crouching deputy of the proud Scot,” whom he is represented as having previously persecuted and insulted. This virulent and tedious invective concludes thus:--“But I have done with Lord Chatham; I leave him to the poor consolation of a place, a pension, and a peerage, for which he has sold the confidence of a great nation. Pity shall find and weep over him.” It is altogether a poor performance. The only part now of any interest, is the narrative it contains of Wilkes’s arrest and examination for the publication of the _North Briton_, in 1763.--(Almon’s Life of Wilkes, vol. iii. p. 184.--Biographical Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 6.)--E.
[2] Walpole must have meant weeks. The Pope declined receiving them on account of the expenses attending the support of so large a body. Subsequently the miserable pittance of a franc per diem was assigned to each of them.--E.
[3] M de Mello afterwards became Minister of Marine in Portugal, under the Marquis of Pombal, and held that post several years with great reputation. His ability and experience in business, obliged the Court to retain him in the Government after the disgrace of Pombal, notwithstanding his connexions with that statesman, and the known liberality of his opinions.--(Dispatch from Mr. Walpole, minister at Lisbon, in Smith’s Life of Pombal, vol. ii. p. 301.)--E.
[4] The exchange to which Walpole refers was not accomplished without serious difficulty, the Indian Militia raised by the Jesuits having long successfully resisted the Spanish and Portuguese forces employed to carry the treaty into effect. The transaction has generally been ascribed to the intrigues of the Dominicans, the ancient enemies of the Jesuits, and their competitors for spiritual dominion in the New World. The conspiracy of Tavora quickly followed, and furnished Pombal with the ostensible pretext he so ardently desired, for the expulsion of the order from Portugal (in 1759), and it also shook their influence throughout Europe. They lingered on in France, proscribed by the Parliaments, and odious to the great majority of the people, until 1764, when the edict against them was wrung from Louis XV. by the importunities of Choiseul. The same minister has been supposed to have determined the Court of Spain to pursue a similar course; and no doubt his influence and that of his master were used for that purpose. But the real author of the bold and statesmanlike measure described in the text, was Don Pedro D’Aranda, the Captain-General, and President of the Council of Castile. During a lengthened absence from Spain, he had formed in the society of Montesquieu, D’Alembert, and Diderot, as well as of Frederic the Great, plans of national reform, which he knew to be incompatible with the existence of the Jesuits; and from the moment of his accession to power he seems to have been bent on their destruction. His manly and persuasive eloquence, a mind full of resources, and a character indomitably resolute, gained him an extraordinary sway over the divided councils of an ignorant and imbecile Court. The Jesuits had irritated Charles by their intrigues, both at Rome and Madrid, during the reign of his predecessor. Their interference with the various departments of the State had gradually identified them, in the opinion of the people, with the grievous abuses under which the country suffered, and all the rising talent of Spain was secretly opposed to them. D’Aranda boldly arraigned them as the instigators of the insurrection against Squillaci, which, for some hours, had placed the royal family and the capital at the mercy of the mob. He availed himself of the influence he had acquired by quelling that insurrection to press the charge with his characteristic impetuosity. The alarm of the King, and the confidence of the accuser, supplied the deficiency of conclusive proofs, and D’Aranda prevailed.