church[100]." In what part of their Institute is this canon found? It was unknown to the council of Trent, and to the several popes, whose confirmation and commendation that Institute obtained. 2. "They have invariably opposed episcopacy, and they have _repeatedly_ attacked the decrees of general councils, especially that of Trent[101]." It should seem, that, in a protestant country, _attacks_ upon catholic councils would not be deemed very enormous sins. But, since they have been _repeatedly_ committed by Jesuits, it would have been easy for Laicus to convict them, at least, in one instance. Why has it been omitted? 3. "The society has prisons, {290} independent of secular authority, in which refractory members are put to death; a _right_ which Laines obtained for them[102]." Quere, from whom did he obtain it? From the pope? In what bullarium then may the grant be found? Did Jesuits ever attempt to use this _right_? Did secular sovereigns quietly acquiesce in such a glaring usurpation of their most undoubted right? Of what avail could such a privilege have been to the Jesuits, who always had the power to dismiss refractory members from their society, as they dismissed Jerom Zarowicz, Antonio de Dominis, abbé Raynal, and many others? Poor Laicus cannot answer one of these questions. He has disclaimed all pretension to novelty; he is satisfied with copying malignity; and, to the shame of the Encyclopedia Britannica, he has transcribed this impudent forgery from vol. ix of that work (_page_ 510, _art. Laines_), where, without a shadow of proof or of probability, it is roundly stated, that "Laines, {291} general of the Jesuits, procured from pope Paul IV the privilege of having prisons independent of the secular authority, in which they (the Jesuits) put to death refractory brethren." 4. "One peculiar object of the society is to direct and aid the operations of the Inquisition[103]." It is not easy to ascertain the precise source of this falsehood. Probably it is not borrowed from foreign libels, because, in all catholic countries, it was universally known, that Jesuits never had any concern in the administration, or proceedings, of the Inquisition. 5. "The Jesuits usurped the sovereignty of Paraguay, and held the Indians in slavery[104]." This has been a thousand times said; and it has been as often demonstrated, to the satisfaction of impartial inquirers, that the Jesuits were the steady friends and defenders of the liberty of the Indians, and that the success of their missions in South America was a glorious triumph of {292} humanity and religion, hardly to be equalled in the history of the Christian church. 6. "They formed two conspiracies against king Joseph of Portugal, and his whole family[105]." In spite of the prepotency of the cruel minister Pombal, truth has prevailed, and the world remains convinced, that not even one conspiracy was ever formed against king Joseph of Portugal, either by Jesuits, or by any other persons. 7.