A few of these ancient men, who have weathered the whole storm, are still alive, {227} comforting their old age with the late public testimony of the head of the church, that they deserved a better fate. Having availed themselves of the indulgence of the British government, on leaving the Netherlands they sought an asylum in their own country. They here subsist, in the security of conscious innocence, fearless of the prejudices and malice of a few unprovoked foes, who know not how to harrass them but by the old weapons of misrepresentation and slander. They have pledged their allegiance to their king and country, in the comprehensive oath of 1791; they meddle not with general or county politics; _they seek no offices of state_, that remaining stumbling block in the way of the catholic nobility and gentry; they attend solely to their own professional concerns; and, as peaceable and loyal subjects, they may justly expect protection for their persons and for their property. Friends of the government and of the country, friends of monarchy, friends of public tranquillity, friends of order and {228} subordination, friends of religion, friends of morality, friends of letters, shall they not be protected? Ignorance, prejudice, and passion, shall not prevail against such men. * * * * * {229} CHAPTER IV. _Character of Pombal. Summary Observations, and a brief notice of the tendency and danger of Education independent of Religion._ The success of the old conspiracy against the Jesuits will not be wondered at, when we reflect upon the character of the age in which it was formed, and on the means that were used to mature it. Ignorance was the lot of the generality of men: despotism pervaded courts, and tools were never wanting to shape events to the will of the powerful. Of the parliaments, the university, and of the Jansenists, enough has been said to show the inveteracy and malignity with which they carried on their unjust persecutions of the society, and to expose the {230} causes of their conduct; but, in the mention which has occasionally been made of the Portuguese minister Carvalho, marquis of Pombal, the great persecutor of the Jesuits, too little has been said to account for his hatred of them; I will, therefore, here, make him the subject of a few pages.