or to punishment of any duration; and in which the very name of a tax or of a lawsuit is {150} unknown." Listen, I pray, to this account, from a quarter so unsuspected, of "the _slavery_ in which the Jesuits held the Indians of Paraguay, and the _atrocities_ which they exercised there;" for such is the language of their assailant, whom one must be surprised to find unacquainted with the writings of such an author as Raynal. THE BISHOPS OF FRANCE. There are forty-five names of bishops subscribed to a reply made by them to certain articles proposed for their examination by Louis XV. Their judgment is given at considerable length, and the testimony of it is too valuable to be abridged. I have already referred the reader to the document, printed at length, in the Appendix, at the end of this volume; to enable him, however, to judge here of the importance of it, I will insert the articles in this place. {151} The first is: "Of what use the Jesuits may be in France; the advantages or inconveniences that may attend the various functions, which they exercise under our authority." The second: "How the Jesuits behave, in their instructions, and in their own conduct, with regard to certain opinions, which strike at the safety of the king's person; as, likewise, with regard to the received doctrine of the clergy of France, contained in the declaration of the year 1682; and, in general, with regard to their opinions on the other side of the Alps." The third: "The conduct of the Jesuits, with regard to their subordination to bishops; and whether, in the exercise of their functions, they do not encroach on the pastoral rights and privileges." The fourth: "Whether it may not be convenient to moderate and set bounds to the {152} authority, which the general of the Jesuits exercises in France." The replies fully substantiate the utility of the society, the purity of their doctrine, the regularity of their conduct, and the consistency of their government with their duty to their king and country[59]. Such, then, is the nature of the authorities, that rank in favour of the Jesuits; and the reader, by comparing them with the inveterate and corrupt spirits, which have been dragged from obscurity to destroy them a second time, will be able to estimate their respective value, and the motives of the new conspirators against them.