magistrates; you emulate the savage cruelty of Nero towards the primitive Christians--you dress up your Jesuits in the semblance of wild beasts, to entice your dogs to devour them. And could you not, then, see the inconsistency of representing the whole body of Jesuits, as men systematically trained to every vice and crime, and of acknowledging, at the same time, {267} that they governed the consciences of all monarchs, and of all their grandees; that they ruled courts; that they were every where trusted, respected, and employed? They enjoyed this credit during two hundred years, in all catholic countries, and, if we must believe you, in all countries not professedly catholic, that is, in protestant countries; and yet you require us to admit, that all the sovereigns, prelates, and magistrates of those nations, had neither the discernment to discover, nor the power to control the course of their wickedness. Indeed, Sir, the best refutation of your fable would be, a comparison of the state of religion, morality, order, and subordination in catholic countries, while Jesuits, as you tell us, were their teachers, preachers, and directors, with the face of public morals, after their enemies had accomplished their destruction. Another complete refutation of your inconsistent charge arises from the remarkable circumstance, that, in all the countries where Jesuits were consigned to jails, exile, infamy, and beggary, not a crime could be alleged or {268} proved against a single Jesuit; not one was ever interrogated or suffered to plead his cause. Horrid to tell! they were all everywhere condemned, everywhere punished unheard, untried. This is a fact of public notoriety[96].