A royal decree was issued on 27th February, 1767, and dated from _el Pardo_, by which a Junta, composed of several members of the Royal Council, was instituted, in consequence of the riot of Madrid of the preceding year. To this Junta several bishops, selected from those who were most attached to the doctrines of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and, consequently, least favourable to the Jesuits, (for they espouse the rival tenets,) were added for the purpose of giving weight and authority to their decree. In this Junta the day and form of the measure were resolved upon, and instructions drawn out for the Magistrates who were to execute it both in Spain and in America, together with directions for the nature of the preparations, the carriages to be provided at the various places inland, and the vessels to be ready in the ports. The precautions were well laid. The secret was wonderfully kept; and on the night of the first of April, at midnight precisely, every College of the Jesuits throughout Spain was surrounded by troops, and every member of each collected in their respective chapters, priests or lay-brothers, young or old, acquainted with the decree, and forcibly conveyed out of the kingdom. Their sufferings are well known; and the fortitude with which they bore them must extort praise even from those who are most convinced of the mischiefs which their long influence in the courts of Europe produced. The expulsion and persecution of the French priests during the Revolution was more bloody, but scarcely less inhuman, than the hardships inflicted by the regular and legitimate monarchies which had originally encouraged them, on the Jesuits. On the other hand, the suppression of that society was favourable to the cause of liberty, morals, and even learning;--for though their system of education has been much extolled, it must be acknowledged that in Spain, at least, the period at which the education of youth was chiefly entrusted to Jesuits, is that in which Castilian literature declined, and general ignorance prevailed. If the state of education in a country is to be judged of by its fruits, the Jesuits in Spain certainly retarded its progress. In relation to the rest of Europe, the Spaniards were farther advanced in science and learning during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, than during the seventeenth and eighteenth; and since the suppression of the Company, in 1767, and not till then, a taste for literature and a spirit of improvement revived among them. NOTES. NOTE A. _On the Devotion of the Spaniards to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary._--p. 22.