[292] Anderson, who appears to have made a painstaking examination of the available records, states his conclusions thus: “I have made a special effort to discover every possible instance and to avoid confusing Federal and State cases. There appears to have been about 24 or 25 persons arrested. At least 15, and probably several more, were indicted. Only 10, or possibly 11, cases came to trial. In 10 the accused were pronounced guilty. The eleventh case may have been an acquittal, but the report of it is entirely unconfirmed.” (_Report of the American Historical Association for 1912_, p. 120. _Cf._ Bassett, _The Federalist System_, p. 264.) An important phase of the judicial aspects of the situation, as respects the forming of public opinion, was the widespread publication in the newspapers of the charges made to grand juries by Federal judges who exerted themselves to defend the alien and sedition laws, and whose utterances received caustic criticism at the hands of Democrat writers. [293] Duniway, _The Development of Freedom of the Press in Massachusetts_, pp. 145, 146. [294] _The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_, vol. vii, pp. 331 _et seq._, Jefferson’s letter to Elbridge Gerry. [295] The report of this episode may be found in the _Connecticut Courant_ of May 14, 1798. _Cf._ _The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_, vol. vii, pp. 252 _et seq._, Jefferson’s letter to Madison. [296] _Ibid._ [297] _An Answer to Alexander Hamilton’s Letter, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq., President of the United States_, New York, 1800, p. 3. In this connection it may be noted that as ardent and hopeful a Democrat as Nathaniel Ames seriously contemplated the outbreak of civil war in the United States as the result of the tense party situation near the end of 1798. _Cf._ _Dedham Historical Register_, Diary of Ames, vol. ix, p. 63. [298] _The Works of Alexander Hamilton_, vol. vii, pp. 374–377: Fragment on the French Revolution. The Fragment is undated. It could not have been written later than 1804, of course. There are some slight traces that it was compiled at the time the excitement over the Illuminati was prevalent in America. CHAPTER III THE EUROPEAN ORDER OF THE ILLUMINATI 1. THE RISE AND THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE ORDER That great European movement in the direction of the secularization of thought to which the expressive term, the _Aufklärung_ or Enlightenment, has been applied, and which reached its apogee in the latter half of the eighteenth century, encountered a stubborn opposition in southern Germany in the electorate of Bavaria. The pivot of Bavarian politics, particularly from the beginning of the sixteenth century, had been the alliance which had been effected between the clerical party and the civil power. The counter reformation which followed in the wake of the Lutheran movement was able to claim the field in Bavaria without the necessity of a combat.