Meanwhile, the new doctrines of political reform and civil liberty had spread so fast, and were so eagerly embraced by the populations of different kingdoms, that their sovereigns thought proper to give some satisfaction to public opinion, and call to their councils reforming ministers. In France, Choiseul; in Spain, Wall and Squillace; in Portugal, Carvalho; in Naples, Tanucci—were placed at the helm of the state, and began to attack the most obnoxious abuses against which people had set their minds. Now, in this disposition of the public opinion, it was evident that, at the first favourable circumstance, the ruin of the Jesuits, who had been so greatly damaged in popular favour, would be actually consummated; because it was to be expected that in this case would happen what generally takes place in political movements, that when once the moral revolution is accomplished, the smallest pretext suffices to achieve the triumph of the material one also. Either the Jesuits furnished this pretext to Carvalho, prime minister of the King of Portugal; or, at any rate, imagining that he had himself discovered it, he attempted the overthrow of the Order. But the causes of this overthrow were not, as is asserted by the able historian of the fall of the Jesuits, wholly local, and of a private and personal nature.[322] Any other occurrence would have served the purpose as well. It may be that Carvalho accelerated their ruin; but even without him the Jesuits must have fallen. We shall briefly trace the order of events which issued in their expulsion from Portugal.