Baftia; here they were as unfortunate as before; matters were not yet brought to a conclufion between the French and Genoefe, and they were obliged to remain on board, in the harbour. Thrée other embarkations took at different times the fame route as the firft, to Civita Vecchia; where meeting with the fame fate, they afterwards proceeded to Corfica, where they lay in the harbours of Baftia and San Fiorenzo, but were not admitted to land. The conditions being at laft fettled with the republic, the different embarkations received orJuly 8th. ders to fail to Calvi, Algaiola, and Ajaccio: at which ports the tranfports were difburdened of their unhappy freight; and the furviving Jefuits, to the number, it is faid, of 2,300, were landed.

Without confidering the religious or political tenets of this fociety (which appear to have been dangerous, from the general perfecution raised against them in fo many countries of their own perfuafion) we are obliged, as men, to fympathize with them in the miferies which they underwent in their exile. The lying crowded for three months aboard tranfports, in the hottest feafon of a hot climate, would be reckoned a fevere trial to land-men of the most robuft conftitutions. In this cafe we see a number of men of all ages, and in every state of health, not inured to hardfhips, bred up to letters and a fedentary life; the conftitutions that naturally attend that course of life, farther impaired by the grief, anxiety, and horror, which muft be the confe

1

qnence of banishment from their native country, from friends, relations, and thofe ties fo dear to mankind; and in that fituation, obliged to undergo hardships, which prove fo fatal to the hardieft and beft-feafoned troops. The confequences were what might have been naturally expected: they died in great numbers; and the general calamity was increased upon individuals by fome of the fhips being feparated in ftorms, and toffed about the islands of the Archipelago for feveral weeks.

As if all this had been only a prelude to the misfortunes of the Jefuits, the parliament of Paris pub-. May 13th. lifhed an arret against them, wherein they were declared enemies to fovereigns and the public tranquillity of kingdoms; and all thofe who had been indulged with the liberty of ftaying in the kingdom by the edict of November, 1764, were ordered to quit it in fifteen days, under pain of criminal profecution. By this arret, they are forbid ever to return, under any pretence whatfoever; and the king is to be fupplicated to apply to the pope, and to all other Catholic fovereigns, and engage them to abolish a fociety so dangerous to Chriftianity and government. The other articles of this arret feemed to be a tranfcript of thofe published in the ordinance at Madrid.

The King of Spain's orders relative to the Jefuits were as well executed in the Spanish colonies as they had been at home. In the month of July the Jefuits of Mexico, to the number of 700, were fuddenly arrefted, without the

leaf

1

leaft previous notice, and ftrongly fecured till fhips could be provided to convey them home. The fame measures were as effectually pursued in other parts of the Spanish foreign dominions; and fhips have fince continually arrived in the ports of Old Spain, with cargoes of prifoners on board.

It is faid that the confifcated eftates and effects of the Jefuits in the provinces of Mexico only, were computed to amount to the immenfe value of 77 millions of piafters, or 385 millions of French livres. It is alfo faid that the effects which were found in their warehouses in the different ports of Old Spain were valued at a prodigious fum; and that the Jefuits of Peru, and the fouthern provinces of the Spanish Weft-Indies, were richer than thofe of Mexico. If these facts are truly ftated, we may perhaps be able from them to form a more just conclufion of the causes that brought on the deftruction of this fociety, than thofe that have been already affigned. Immenfe property in private hands, whether communities or fingle perfons, has even in free countries been always attended with imminent danger to the poffeffors. In arbitrary governments, the only fecurity that can attend fuch property, depends upon the wants, the difpofition, or the caprice of a king or a minifter ; »a tenure of all others the most precarious and dangerous.

Most of the Catholic powers in Europe had published edicts, during these transactions, to forbid, under fevere penalties, the reception of the expulfed Jefuits in any part of their dominions; fo that VOL. X.

there is fcarcely an inftance in hiftory of any body of men fo entirely cut off and feparated from the reft of mankind. When affairs were entirely fettled in Spain, and the novelty of the tranfaction began to wear off; the ftorm, which had been for fome time expected, fell at last upon the Jefuits in Naples. The different houfes belonging to the fociety in that capital, were fuddenly invested by the civil and military power, their effects feized, and the members made prifoners. The garri Nov. 2oth. fon in the mean time patrolled the city under arms, and prevented all disturbances.

The fame measures were taken in every part of the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, where the Jefuits had poffeffions; and the pri foners were without ceremony, or leave being asked, all convoyed into the Pope's dominions; the vicinity of whofe territories made every fcheme of oppofition fruitless. The court of Rome complained loudly at this outrage, and prefented memorials to all the foreign minifters in that city. In thefe memorials, the Pope complains, that the King of Naples has violated, in the first place, the divine right, by the manner in which his foldiers entered into holy places, and by the fequeftration of the ecclefiaftical revenues, without confulting the bifhops; fecondly, the right of mankind, by forcibly depofiting fome of his fubjects in the dominions of his holiness, and by marching his troops into a country that was not his own; and lastly, the right of good neighbourhood, in not communicating his defign to the [C]

Pope,

Pope, both as the head of the church, and as a temporal prince, who has the fupreme fovereignty over Naples.

Thefe memorials produced the fame effect, which the remonftrances of weak princes to their powerful neighbours generally do; they were carelefly answered, and no farther notice taken of them. The cardinal Orfini, the Neapolitan minifter at Rome, made a verbal declaration to the following purport: "That every fovereign having a right to drive from his dominions perfons convicted of being enemies thereof," no other means could be found of getting rid of those fathers, than caufing them to be escorted to the ecclefiaftical state, fince the kingdom of

Naples had no other frontiers; and that, as to the confifcation and management of the effects of the fociety, it no lefs belonged, by the fame right of fovereignty, to the royal treasury.

It is faid, that the number of Jefuits tranfported from the kingdom of Naples, exclufive of those from Sicily, to the papal dominions, amounted to fifteen hundred. This inundation of ftrangers was the more fenfibly felt, as there had been so great a scarcity of corn for fome years in the ecclefiaftical ftate, that it was with the greatest care and difficulty that they could guard against a famine, befides that eight hundred of the Portugal Jefuits were still alive, and unprovided for there.

THE HE ftrenuous efforts which have been made for a number of years, by the natives of the iland of Corfica, to recover their liberty from the Genoese; have in a confiderable degree attracted the attention of the other nations of Eu

rope. This feems now to be more particularly the cafe; as under the conduct of their prefent chief, they not only bid fair for being entirely independent, but they but they have drawn the outlines, and

L

feem disposed to establish a regular and permanent form of government; a measure, which the Genoefe, without foreign affiftance, are in no degree capable of preventing.

Republics, though fond of boafting of the great advantages of freedom, yet feem to think it too great a bleffing to be communicated to others, fo they are looked upon to be the worst mafters in the world. The Italian republics

have not escaped this cenfure; and one of the wifeft of them is faid to have fuffered feverely, and to have loft great power and property, by incurring it. Under fuch a mode of government, it is probable that the Corficans had frequent and fufficient causes of complaint.

It was the peculiar unhappiness of the inhabitants of this island, that they were in all ages a prey to foreigners; doomed to feel the iron hand of oppreffion from every comer, they never feem to have had a fixed or permanent government of their own. This continual ftate of oppreffion depended in a great measure upon their central fituation ; in a manner furrounded by great, warlike, and powerful na

tions.

This ifland, after a continued feries of revolutions, if paffing from the hands of one tyrant to another may be called fo, was at length granted by one of the popes to the republic of Pisa, which was then a very confiderable maritime ftate. In the long wars which enfued between this republic and that of Genoa, Corfica was a particular object of their contention; and, after a tedious ftruggle, was conquered by the Genoefe about the beginning of the fourteenth century. The conduct of the Genoefe in the government of this ifland, feems in general to have been cruel, arbitrary, and impolitic. So large a number of nobles, who looked upon themselves as joint monarchs of an ifland, which increased their vanity by having the name of a kingdom, wanted each in his individual perfon, to fhew fome extraordinary exertion of power,

own

that might perpetuate his fame as a fovereign. Senfible alfo of their own weakness, their councils were guided by continual fear and diftruft; fo that their fyftem seemed to be rather to keep the island defart and barbarous, in hope of security in the poffeffion, than to fuffer any improvement that could make it beneficial either to the natives, or themselves.

The Corficans were far from being paffive during this long course of oppreffion. In the 16th century they carried on a bloody and defperate war, which continued feveral years, and in which they were very near fucceeding against the Genoefe; and when at last they

were

overcome, they offered to fubmit themfelves to the Turks, rather than return under the yoke of their old masters.

The prefent troubles began about the year 1729; it is true, there have been fome intervals of tranquillity, but they were only of a fhort continuance, and peace has never fince been thoroughly established in the ifland. The Genoefe, after feveral encounters finding their own force infufficient to reduce the malecontents, were obliged to call in an imperial army under General Wachtendonck to their affiftance; but this army being alfo unable to reduce the Corficans, a ftronger was obliged to be brought in under the command of the Prince of Wirtemberg. The Corficans, unable to refift fo fuperior a force, were obliged to come into a treaty under the emperor's guarantee. The gaining of this point is faid to have coft

the

Genoese thirty millions of French livres: the troubles arose from the cruel treatment of a poor [C] 2

woman,