POMBAL
Early life--Ambitions--Portuguese Missions--Seizure of the
Spanish Reductions. Expulsion of the Missionaries--End of the
Missions in Brazil--War against the Society in Portugal--The
Jesuit Republic--Cardinal Saldanha--Seizure of Churches and
Colleges--The Assassination Plot--The Prisons--Exiles--
Execution of Malagrida.
The first conspirator who set to work to carry out the plot to destroy
the Society, which had long been planned by the powers, was, as might be
expected, the ruthless Pombal. He was more shameless and savage than his
associates and would adopt any method to accomplish his purpose. The
insensate fury which possessed his whole being against the Society is
explained by Cardinal Pacca, who was Papal nuncio in Lisbon shortly
after Pombal's fall (Notizie sul Portogallo, 10). He writes: "Pombal
began his diplomatic career in Germany where he probably drank in those
principles of aversion to the Holy See and the religious orders, which,
when afterwards put in practice, merited for him from the irreligious
philosophers the title of a great minister, and an illuminator of his
nation; from good people, however, that of a vile instrument of the
sects at war with the Church. Having obtained the office of prime
minister, he made himself master of the mind of the king, Don Joseph;
and for a quarter of a century governed the kingdom as a despot.
"To wage war against the Holy See, and to oppress the clergy, he adopted
the measures and employed the arms which, in the hands of the
irreligious men of our time, have done and are still doing harm and
inflicting grievous wounds on the Church. He corrupted and perverted
public education in the schools and universities, especially in Coimbra
which soon became a centre of moral pestilence. He took from the hands
of the youth of the kingdom the sound doctrinal works which they had so
far been made to study; and substituted schismatical and heretical
publications such as Dupin's 'De antiqua ecclesia' which had been
condemned by Innocent XII; and Hontheim's 'Febronius' condemned by
Clement XIII. He also brought into Portugal the works of the régalists,
and excluded those writers who maintained the rights and authority of
the Holy See, in defence of which he would not allow a word to be
uttered. And to the horror of all decent people, he imprisoned in a
loathsome dungeon a holy and venerable bishop who had warned his flock
against those pernicious publications. Meantime the notorious Oratorian
Pereira, who was condemned by the Index, and others who flattered him
were remunerated for their writings and could print whatever they liked.
He was a Jansenist who, in the perfidious fashion of the sect, exalted
the authority of the bishops in order to diminish that of the Pope; and
enlarged the authority of kings in church matters to such an extent that
the system differed very little from that of the Protestant Anglican
Church. Queen Marìa, who succeeded Joseph on the throne, did much to
improve conditions; but did not undo all the harm that Pombal had
already inflicted on the nation. Disguised Anglicanism continued to
exist in Portugal."
Father Weld adds his own judgment to that of the cardinal, and tells us
that "the bias in Pombal's nature may be traced to his English
associations when he was ambassador in London." He advances this view,
probably because of a note of Pacca's, who says that he could venture
no opinion about the influence of England on Pombal, merely for want of
documents on that point. The author of the "Memoires pour servir à
l'histoire ecclésiastique du xviii^e siècle" assures us that Pombal's
purpose was to extend his reforms even into the bosom of the Church; to
change, to destroy; to subject the bishops to his will; to declare
himself an enemy of the Holy See; to protect authors hostile to the Holy
See; to encourage publications savoring of novelty; to favor in Portugal
a theological instruction quite different from what had been adopted
previous to his time; and finally to open the way to a pernicious
teaching in a country which until then had enjoyed religious peace.
This scheme did not restrict itself to a religious propaganda but got
into the domain of politics; for the author of the "Vita di Pombal" (I,
145) notes the report, which is confirmed by the "Memoria Catholica
secunda" that "Pombal had formed the design of marrying the Princess
Marìa to the Duke of Cumberland, the butcher of Culloden--but that this
was thwarted by the Jesuit confessor of the king." On this point the
Maréchal de Belle Isle writes (Testament politique, 108): "It is known
that the Duke of Cumberland looked forward to becoming King of Portugal,
and I doubt not he would have succeeded, if the Jesuit confessors of the
royal family had not been opposed to it. This crime was never forgiven
the Portuguese Jesuits."
Whatever the truth may be about these royal schemes, Pombal soon found
his chance to wreak his vengeance on the Society for balking his plans
of making Portugal a Protestant country. A scatter-brained individual,
named Pereira, who lived at Rio Janerio, raised the cry which may have
been suggested to him, that the Jesuits of the Reductions excluded
white intercourse with the natives because of the valuable gold mines
they possessed; and that it would be a proper and, indeed, a most
commendable thing in the interests of religion for the government to
seize this source of wealth, and thus compel the Jesuits who controlled
that territory to live up to the holiness of their profession. It was
also added that the missions were little else than a great commercial
speculation; and finally that the ultimate design of the Society was to
make a Republic of Paraguay, independent of the mother country.
These three charges had been reiterated over and over again ever since
the foundation of the Reductions, and had been just as often refuted and
officially denied after the most vigorous investigation. But there was a
man now in control of Portugal who would not be biased by any religious
sentiment or regard for truth, if he could injure the Society. The first
step was to transfer the aforesaid missions to Portuguese control. They
all lay on the east shore of the Uruguay, and belonged to Spain. Hence,
in 1750, a treaty was made between Spain and Portugal, to concede to
Spain the undisputed control of the rich colony of San Sacramento, at
the mouth of the River La Plata, in exchange for the territory, in which
lay the seven Reductions of St. Michael, St. Lawrence, St. Aloysius, St.
John, St. Francis Borgia, Holy Angels and St. Nicholas. According to the
treaty, it was stipulated that the Portuguese should take immediate
possession and fling out into the world, they did not care where, the
30,000 Indians who had built villages in the country, and were
peacefully cultivating their farms, and who by the uprightness and
purity of their lives were giving to the world and to all times an
example of what Muratori calls a _Cristianesimo felice_.
To add to the brutality of the act, the Fathers themselves were ordered
to announce to the Indians the order to vacate. Representations were
made by the Spanish Viceroy of Peru, the Royal Audiencia of Charcas and
various civil and ecclesiastical authorities of Spain that not only was
this seizure a most atrocious violation of justice which could not be
carried out except by bloodshed, no one could say to what extent, but
that it was giving up the property of the Indians to their bitterest
enemies, the Portuguese. For it was precisely to avoid the Mamelukes of
Brazil that the Reductions had been originally created. Moreover, it
would almost compel the Indians to conclude that the Fathers had
betrayed them, and that they were not only parties to, but instigators
of, the whole scheme of spoliation. Southey, in his "History of Brazil,"
denounces it as "one of the most tyrannical commands that were ever
issued, in the recklessness of unfeeling power," and says that "the weak
Ferdinand VI had no idea of the importance of the treaty."
The Jesuits appealed; but they were, of course, unheeded; and the Father
General Visconti ordered them to submit without a murmur. Unfortunately,
the commissioner Father Altamirano, whom he sent out was a bad choice.
He was hot-headed and imperious; and according to Father Huonder (The
Catholic Encyclopedia) actually treated his fellow Jesuits as rebels,
when they advised him to proceed with moderation. Perhaps the fact that
he was the representative of the king, as well as of the General,
affected him; at all events the Indians would have killed him if he had
not fled. Ten years would not have sufficed for a transfer of such a
vast multitude with their women and children, and the old and infirm,
not to speak of the herds and flocks and farming implements and
household furniture, yet they were ordered to decamp within thirty days.
Pombal would soon treat his Jesuit fellow countrymen as he had treated
the Indians.
When, at last, the cruel edict was published, all the savage instincts
of the Indians awoke, and it seemed for a time as if the missionaries
would be massacred. It speaks well for the solid Christian training that
had been given to these children of the forest that they at last
consented to consider the matter at all. Some of the caciques were
actually won over to the advisability of the measure, and started out
with several hundred exiles to find a new home in the wilderness. A
number of the children and the sick succumbed on the way. When, at last
they found a place in the mountains of Quanai, they were attacked by
hostile tribes. They resisted for a while, but finally returned in
despair to their former abode. To make matters worse, the Bishop of
Paraguay notified the Fathers that if they did not obey, they would be
_ipso facto_ suspended. "Whereas," says Weld, "if the Fathers really
wished to oppose the government, a single sign from them would have sent
an army of fifty thousand men to resist the Europeans; but owing to
their fidelity and incredible exertions, there were never as many as
seven hundred men in the field against the united armies of Spain and
Portugal when hostilities at last broke out."
During the year 1754, the Indians harassed the enemy by the skirmishes
and won many a victory; and they would have ultimately triumphed if they
had had a leader. At last in 1755, the combined forces of the enemy with
thirty pieces of artillery attacked them with the result that might have
been expected. The natives rushed frantically on their foes; but the
musketry and cannon stretched four hundred of them in their blood; and
the rest either fled to the mountains or relapsed into savage life; or
made their submission to the government, many becoming as bad as their
kindred in the forests because of the corruption they saw around them.
The Portuguese entered into possession of the seven Reductions, but
failed to find any gold. So great was their chagrin that, in 1761,
Carvalho wanted the rich territory which he had given to Spain returned
to Portugal; and when Spain naturally demurred, he prepared to go to war
for it. He finally gained his point, and on February 12, 1761, the
territories were restored to their original owners, but nothing was
stipulated, about restitution to the unfortunate natives and Jesuits who
had been the victims of this shameful political deal.
Some of the Indians who fled to the forests kept up a guerilla warfare
against the invaders; but the greater number followed the advice of the
Fathers and settled on the Paraná and on the right bank of the Uruguay.
In 1762 there were 2,497 families scattered through seventeen Reductions
or _doctrinas_, as they had begun to be called, a term that is
equivalent to "parish." But the expulsion of the Fathers which followed
soon after completed the ruin of this glorious work. The Indians died or
became savage again; and today only beautiful ruins mark the place where
this great commonwealth once stood. At the time of the Suppression, or
rather when Pombal drove the Jesuits out of every Portuguese post into
the dungeons of Portugal or flung them into the Papal States, the
Paraguay province had five hundred and sixty-four members, twelve
colleges, one university, three houses for spiritual retreats, two
residences, fifty-seven Reductions and 113,716 Christian Indians. The
leave-taking of the Fathers and Indians was heart-rending on both sides.
It is a long distance from the River La Plata to the Amazon; for there
are about thirty-five degrees of latitude between the two places. But
they were not too far apart to check Carvalho in his work of
destruction. After having done all he could for the moment at one end of
Brazil, he addressed himself to the Jesuit missions at the other. A
glance at the past history of these establishments will reveal the
frightful injustice of the brutal acts of 1754.
One hundred years before that time, Vieira had made his memorable fight
against his Portuguese fellow-countrymen for the liberation of the
Indians from slavery. By so doing, he had, of course, aroused the fury
of the whites, and they determined to crush him. They put him in prison;
and in 1660 sent him and his companions to Portugal, in a crazy ship to
be tried for disturbing the peace of the colony. Nevertheless, he won
the fight, although meantime three Jesuits had been killed by the
Indians, and their companions expelled from the colony, in spite of the
king's protection. In this act, however, the Portuguese had gone too
far. His majesty saw the truth and sent the missionaries back. That was
as early as 1680. In 1725 new complaints were sent to Portugal, but the
supreme governor of the Maranhão district wrote, as follows, to the
king: "The Fathers of the Society in this State of Maranhão are objects
of enmity and have always been hated, for no other reason than for their
strenuous defence of the liberty of the unfortunate Indians, and also
because they used all their power to oppose the tyrannical oppression of
those who would reduce to a degraded and unjust slavery men whom nature
had made free. The Fathers take every possible care that the laws of
your majesty on this point shall be most exactly observed. They devote
themselves entirely to the promotion of the salvation of souls and the
increase of the possessions of your majesty; and have added many sons
to the Church and subjects to the crown from among these barbarous
nations."
With regard to their alleged commerce, the governor says: "Whatever has
been charged against the Fathers by wicked calumniators who, through
hatred and envy, manufacture ridiculous lies about the wealth they
derive from those missions, I solemnly declare to your majesty, and I
speak of a matter with which I am thoroughly acquainted, that the
Fathers of the Society are the only true missionaries of these regions.
Whatever they receive from their labors among the Indians is applied to
the good of the Indians themselves and to the decency and ornamentation
of the churches, which, in these missions, are always very neat and very
beautiful. Nothing whatever that is required in the missions is kept for
themselves. As they have nothing of their own, whatever each missionary
sends is delivered to the procurator of the mission, and every penny of
it reverts to the use of the particular mission from whence it came.
Missioners of other orders send quite as much produce, but each one
keeps his own portion separate, to be used as he likes, so that the
quantity however great being thus divided, does not make much impression
on those who see it. But as the missionaries of the Society send
everything together to the procurator, the quantity, when seen in bulk,
excites the cupidity of the malevolent and envious."
About 1739, Eduardo dos Santos was sent by John V as a special
commissioner to Maranhão. After spending twenty months in visiting every
mission and examining every detail he wrote as follows: "The execrable
barbarity with which the Indians are reduced to slavery has become such
a matter of custom that it is rather looked on as a virtue. All that is
adduced against this inhuman custom is received with such repugnance
and so quickly forgotten that the Fathers of the Society in whose
charity these unfortunate creatures often find refuge and protection,
and who take compassion on their miserable lot, become, for this very
reason, objects of hatred to these avaricious men."
Such were the official verdicts of the conduct of the Jesuits on the
Amazon a few years before Pombal came into power. But in 1753 regardless
of all this he sent out his brother Francis Xavier Mendoza, a
particularly worthless individual, and made him Governor of Gran Para
and Maranhão, giving him a great squadron of ships and a considerable
body of troops with orders to humble the Jesuits and send back to
Portugal any of them who opposed his will. Everything was done to create
opposition. They were forbidden to speak or to preach to the Indians
except in Portuguese; the soldiers were quartered in the Jesuit
settlements, and were instructed to treat the natives with especial
violence and brutality.
In 1754 a council was held in Lisbon to settle the question about
expelling the Society from the missions of Maranhão. The order was held
up temporarily by the queen; but when she died, a despatch was sent in
June 1755 ordering their immediate withdrawal from all "temporal and
civil government of the missions." The instructions stated that it was
"in order that God might be better served." Unfortunately the bishop of
the place co-operated with Carvalho in everything that was proposed. He
suppressed one of the colleges, restricted the number of Fathers in the
others, to twelve, and sent the rest back to Portugal; and in order to
excite the settlers against the Society, he had the Bull of Benedict XIV
which condemned Indian slavery read from the pulpits, proclaiming that
it had been inspired by the Jesuits. Meantime, in the reports home, the
insignificant Indian villages where they labored were magnified into
splendid cities and towns all owned by the Society; two pieces of cannon
which had never fired a ball were described as a whole park of
artillery, and a riot among the troops was set down as a rebellion
excited by the Jesuits.
The first three Fathers to be banished from Brazil were José,
Hundertpfund and da Cruz. José was a royal appointee sent out to
determine the boundary line between the Spanish and Portuguese American
possessions. But that did not trouble Pombal; nor did the German
nationality of Hundertpfund, nor did he deign to state the precise
nature of their offenses. A fourth victim named Ballister had had the
bad taste to preach on the text: "Make for yourself friends of the
Mammon of iniquity." He was forthwith accused of attacking one of
Carvalho's commercial enterprises, and promptly ordered out of the
country. Again, when some mercantile rivals sent a petition to the king
against Carvalho's monopolies, Father Fonseca was charged with prompting
it, and he was outlawed though absolutely innocent. And so it went on.
Carvalho's brother was instructed to invent any kind of an excuse to
increase the number of these expatriations.
While these outrages were being perpetrated in the colonies, Lisbon's
historic earthquake of 1755 occurred. The city was literally laid in
ruins. Thousands of people were instantly killed; and while other
thousands lay struggling in the ruins, the rising flood of the Tagus and
a deluge of rain completed the disaster. Singularly enough, Carvalho's
house escaped the general wreck; and the foolish king considered that
exception to be a Divine intervention in behalf of his great minister,
and possibly, on that account, left him unchecked in the fury which even
the awful calamity which had fallen on his country did not at all
moderate. The Jesuits were praised by both king and patriarch for their
heroic devotion both during and after the great disaster, but those
commendations only infuriated Pombal the more. When one of the Fathers,
the holy Malagrida, had dared to say in the pulpit that the earthquake
was a punishment for the vice that was rampant in the capital, Pombal
regarded it as a reflection on his administration; and the offender,
though seventy years old and universally regarded as a saint, was
banished from the city as inciting the people to rebellion.
However, the furious minister meted out similar treatment to others,
even to his political friends. Thus, although the British parliament had
voted £40,000 for the relief of the sufferers, besides giving a personal
gift to the king and sending ships with cargoes of food for the people,
Pombal immediately ran up the tax on foreign imports, for he was
financially interested in domestic productions. Even in doling out
provisions to the famishing populace, he was so parsimonious that riots
occurred, whereupon he hanged those who complained. The author of the
"Vita" (I, 106) vouches for the fact that at one time there were three
hundred gibbets erected in various parts of Lisbon. The Jesuit
confessors at the court were especially obnoxious to him and he
dismissed them all with an injunction never to set foot in the royal
precincts again. The anger of their royal penitents did not restrain
him, so absolute was his power both then and afterwards. The plea was
that the priests were plotters against the king. To increase that
impression he pointed out to his majesty the number of offenders against
him; all members of the detested Order who were coming back in every
ship from Brazil. The General of the Society, Father Centurioni, wrote
to the king pleading the innocence of the victims; but the letter never
got further than the minister. The king did not even know it had been
sent.
The next step in this persecution was to publish the famous pamphlet
entitled: "A Brief Account of the Republic which the Jesuits have
established in the Spanish and Portuguese dominions of the New World,
and of the War which they have carried on against the armies of the two
Crowns; all extracted from the Register of the Commissaries and
Plenipotentiaries, and from other documents." A copy was sent to every
bishop of the country; to the cardinals in Rome, and to all the courts
of Europe. Pombal actually spent 70,000 crowns to print and spread the
work of which he himself was generally credited with being the author.
In South America it was received with derision; in Europe mostly with
disgust. Sad to say, Acciajuoli, the Apostolic nuncio at Lisbon,
believed the Brazilian stories; but he changed his mind, when on the
morning of June 15, 1760, just as he was about to say Mass, he received
a note ordering him in the name of the king to leave the city at once,
and the kingdom within four days; adding that to preserve him from
insult a military escort would conduct him to the frontier. Other
publications of the same tenor followed the "Brief Account." One
especially became notorious. It was: "Letters of the Portuguese Minister
to the Minister of Spain on the Jesuitical Empire, the Republic of
Maranhao; the history of Nicholas I." The Nicholas in question was a
Father named Plantico. To carry out the story of his having been crowned
king or Emperor of Paraguay, coins with his effigy were actually struck
and circulated throughout Europe. Unfortunately for the fraud, none of
the coins were ever seen in Paraguay where they ought to have been
current. Moreover, as Plantico was transported with the other Jesuits of
Brazil, he would have been hanged on his arrival in Portugal, if he had
tried to set up a kingdom of his own in Paraguay. On the contrary, he
went off to his native country of Croatia, and was Rector of the College
of Grosswardein when the general suppression of the Society took place.
Frederick II and d'Alembert used to joke with each other about "King
Nicholas I"; and in Spain, that and the other libels were officially
denounced and their circulation prohibited.
As for Carvalho, these hideous imaginings of his brain became realities;
and the list of Jesuitical horrors which his ambassador at Rome repeated
to the Pope, all, as he alleged, for the sake of the Church, almost
suggest that Pombal was a madman. Long extracts of the document may be
found in de Ravignan and Weld, but it will be sufficient here to mention
a few of the charges. They are, for instance, "seditious machinations
against every government of Europe; scandals in their missions so
horrible that they cannot be related without extreme indecency;
rebellion against the Sovereign Pontiff; the accumulation of vast wealth
and the use of immense political power; gross moral corruption of
individual members of the Order; abandonment of even the externals of
religion; the daily and public commission of enormous crimes; opposing
the king with great armies; inculcating in the Indian mind an implacable
hatred of all white men who are not Jesuits; starting insurrections in
Uruguay so as to prevent the execution of the treaty of limits;
atrociously calumniating the king; embroiling the courts of Spain and
Portugal; creating sedition by preaching in the capital against the
commercial companies of the minister; taking advantage of the earthquake
to attain their detestable ends; surpassing Machiavelli in their
diabolical plots; inventing prophecies of new disasters, such as
warnings of subterranean fires and invasions of the sea; calumniating
the venerable Palafox; committing crimes worse than those of the Knights
Templars, etc."
Unfortunately, Cardinal Passionei who was unfriendly to the Society,
exercised great power at Rome at that time. He was so antagonistic that
he would not allow a Jesuit book in the library, which made d'Alembert
say: "I am sorry for his library." He also refused to condemn the work
of the scandalous ex-monk Norbert, who was in the pay of Carvalho. To
make matters worse, Benedict XIV was then at the point of death. And a
short time previously, yielding to Carvalho's importunities, he had
appointed Cardinal Saldanha, who was Carvalho's tool, to investigate the
complaints and to report back to Rome, without however taking any action
on the premises. The dying Pontiff was unaware of the intimacy of
Saldanha with the man in Portugal or he would not have ordered him in
the Brief of appointment to "follow the paths of gentleness and
mildness, in dealing with an Order which has always been of the greatest
edification to the whole world; lest by doing otherwise he would
diminish the esteem which, up to that time, they have justly acquired as
a reward of their diligence. Their holy Institute had given many
illustrious men to the Church whose teachings they have not hesitated to
confirm with their blood." As the Pope died in the following month,
Saldanha made light of the instructions. His usual boast was that "the
will of the king was the rule of his actions; and he was under such
obligations to his majesty, that he would not hesitate to throw himself
from the window if such were the royal pleasure."
It was currently reported in Lisbon, says Weld (130), that the office of
visitor had been first offered to Francis of the Annunciation, an
Augustinian who had reformed the University of Coimbra; and on his
refusal he was sent to prison where he ended his days. But the obliging
Saldanha saw in it an opportunity for still further advancement; he
accepted the work and performed it in accordance with the wishes of
Pombal. Meantime, new dungeons were being made in the fortress of
Jonquiera in which the offending Jesuits were to be buried. Saldanha
began his work as Inquisitor on May 31, by going with great pomp to the
Jesuit Church of St. Roch. Seated on the throne in the sanctuary, he
gave his hand to be kissed by all the religious. When the provincial
knelt before him, the cardinal told him to have confidence--he would act
with clemency. When the ceremony was over, he departed abruptly without
asking any questions or making any examination. But a few days
afterward, the provincial received a letter bearing the date May 15,
that is sixteen days before this visit to the Church, declaring that the
Fathers in Portugal and in its dominions to the ends of the earth were,
on the fullest information, found to be guilty of a worldly traffic
which was a disgrace to the ecclesiastical state; and they were
commanded under pain of excommunication to desist from such business
transactions at the very hour the notification was made. The language
employed in the letter which was immediately spread throughout the
country was insulting and defamatory to the highest degree.
All the procurators were then compelled to hand over their books to the
government. And when the horrified people, who knew there was nothing
back of it all but Carvalho's hatred, manifested their discontent, it
was ascribed to the Jesuits. Hence on June 6, the cardinal patriarch, at
the instigation of the prime minister, suspended them all from the
function of preaching and hearing confessions throughout the
patriarchate. The cardinal had, at first, demurred, for he knew the
Jesuits in Lisbon to be the very reverse of Saldanha's description of
them, and he therefore demanded a regular trial. Whereupon Carvalho flew
into such a rage that out of sheer terror, and after a few hours'
struggle, he issued the cruel order. The poor cardinal, who was an
ardent friend and admirer of the Society, was so horrified at what he
had done that he fell into a fever, and died within a month. Before he
received the last sacraments, he made a public declaration that the
Society was innocent, and he drew up a paper to that effect; but
Carvalho never let it see the light. When the Archbishop of Evora heard
that the dying man had shed tears over his weakness, he said: "Tears are
not enough. He should have shed the last drop of his blood."
Saldanha was made patriarch in the deceased prelate's place; and though
his office of visitor had ceased _ipso facto_ on the death of the Pope,
he continued to exercise its functions nevertheless. He appointed
Bulhoens, the Bishop of Para, a notorious adherent of Carvalho, to be
his delegate in Brazil. Bulhoens first examined the Jesuits of Para, but
could find nothing against them. He then proceeded to Maranhão; but the
bishop of that place left in disgust; and the governor warned Bulhoens
that if he persisted, the city would be in an uproar. Not being able
to effect anything, he asked the Bishop of Bahia to undertake the
work of investigation. The invitation was promptly accepted; and
all the superiors were ordered to show their books under pain of
excommunication. They readily complied, and no fault was found with the
accounts. He then instituted a regular tribunal; received the
depositions of seventy-five witnesses, among them Saldanha's own brother
who had lived twenty-five years in Maranhão. Next he examined the tax
commissioner, through whose hands all contracts and bills of exchange
had to pass; and that official affirmed under oath that he had never
known or heard of any business transactions having been carried on by
Jesuits. The result was that the courageous bishop declared "it would be
an offence against God and his conscience and against the king's majesty
to condemn the Fathers." When his report was forwarded to Portugal,
Carvalho ordered the confiscation of his property; expelled him from his
palace, and declared his see vacant. The valiant prelate passed the rest
of his days in seclusion, supported by the alms of the faithful.
In September 1758, a charge was trumped up in Lisbon in a most tortuous
fashion, based on the alleged discovery of a plot to assassinate the
king. Those chiefly involved were the Duke de Averio and the Marquis de
Tavora, with his wife, his two sons, his two brothers and his two
sons-in-law, all of whom were seized at midnight on December 12. The
marchioness and her daughter-in-law were carried off to a convent in
their night-dresses; the men of the family, to dens formerly occupied by
the wild beasts of the city menagerie. De Aveiro, who was supposed to be
the assassin-in-chief, was not taken until next day. Several others were
included in this general round-up, some of them for having asserted that
the whole conspiracy was a manufactured affair. At the same time, some
of the domestic servants of the marquis, probably for having offered
resistance at the time of the arrest, were put to death so that they
could tell no tales. Not being able to have the accused parties tried
before any regularly constituted tribunal, because of the lack of
evidence, Carvalho drew up a sentence of condemnation himself, and
presented it to a new court which he had just established, called the
_inconfidenza_, and demanded the signatures of the judges who were all
his creatures. After being stormed at for a while, all, with one
exception, put their names to the paper. Then, as by the law of the land
no nobleman could be condemned to death except by his peers, he
constituted himself as a tribunal, along with his secretary of the Navy
and the secretary of Foreign Affairs, neither of whom had any difficulty
in complying with the wish of their master.
On January 11, 1759, three of the noblemen involved, Aveiro, Tavora and
Antongia, were led out to execution before the king's palace. Vast
multitudes had assembled in the public square; and to ensure order,
fresh regiments had been summoned from other parts of the kingdom. A
riot was feared, for the Tavoras were among the noblest families of the
realm. The accused had not even been defended and had been interrogated
on the rack. The execution was most expeditious, and the heads of the
three victims quickly rolled in the dust. That night, the marchioness
was taken from the convent to the new dungeons in the fort; and on
January 12, she heard the sentence of death passed on her by Carvalho
himself who was both judge and accuser. The scaffold was erected in the
square of Belem; and long before daylight of January 13 an immense
multitude had gathered to witness the hideous spectacle. The marchioness
advanced and took her seat in the chair. The axe quickly descended on
her neck--and all was over. She was despatched in this hurried fashion
because the interference of the king was feared. Indeed, the messenger
arrived just when the head had been severed from the body. The two sons
of the marchioness and her son-in-law were then stretched on the rack
and strangled. The father of the family, the old marquis followed next
in order. As a mark of clemency, his torture was brief but effective.
Four others were then executed; fire was set to the gibbet; and its
blood-stained timbers along with the bodies of the victims were reduced
to ashes and thrown into the Tagus. This was not a scene in a village of
savages, but in a great European capital which had just passed through a
terrible visitation of God but apparently had not understood its
meaning. Carvalho was thirsting for more blood, but the king held him
back; so he contented himself with destroying the palaces of the Aveiras
and Tavoras; sprinkling the sites with salt; forbidding anyone to bear
the names hitherto so illustrious, and even effacing them from the
monuments and the public archives. He was not allowed to commit any more
official murders for the moment; but at least he had thousands who were
dying in his underground dungeons.
What had the Jesuits to do with all this? Nothing whatever. They were
accused of being the spiritual advisers of the Tavora family which it
was impossible to disprove, because though the persons implicated by the
accusation were all arrested on the 11th, sentence of death had been
already passed on the 9th. There were twenty-nine paragraphs in the
indictment. The twenty-second said that "even if the exuberant and
conclusive proofs already adduced did not exist, the presumption of the
law would suffice to condemn such monsters." Of course, no lawyer in the
world could plead against such a charge, and it is noteworthy that in
the Brief of Suppression of the whole Society by Clement XIV which
brings together all the accusations against it, there is no mention
whatsoever, even inferentially, of any conspiracy of the Jesuits against
the life of the King of Portugal. Moreover, the Inquisition and all the
Bishops of Spain judged this Portuguese horror at its proper value, when
on May 3, 1759 they put their official stamp of condemnation on the
pamphlets with which the whole of Europe was flooded immediately after
Pombal's infamous act. They denounced the charges one by one as
"designed to foment discord, to disturb the peace and tranquillity of
souls and consciences, and especially to discredit the holy Society of
Jesus and religious who laudably labor in it to the benefit of the
Church; as is known throughout the world." Over and over again as each
book is specifically anathematised, the "holy Society of Jesus" is
spoken of with commendation and praise. The condemned publications were
then burnt in the market place. That exculpation ought to have been
sufficient, coming as it did not only from all the Spanish bishops but
from the Inquisition, which from the very beginning had been uniformly
suspicious of everything Jesuitical. Against this utterance Pombal was
powerless for it was the voice of another nation.
When the year 1759 began, three of the most conspicuous and most
venerable Fathers of Portugal were in jail under sentence of death. But
neither the king nor Carvalho dared to carry out the sentence of
execution. Something however had to be done; and therefore a royal
edict, which had been written long before, was issued. After reciting
all that had been previously said about Brazil, etc. it declared that
"these religious being corrupt and deplorably fallen away from their
holy institute, and rendered manifestly incapable by such abominable and
inveterate vices to return to its observances, must be properly and
effectually banished, denaturalized, proscribed and expelled from all
his majesty's dominions, as notorious rebels, traitors, adversaries and
aggressors of his royal person and realm; as well as for the public
peace and the common good of his subjects; and it is ordered under the
irremissible pain of death, that no person, of whatever state or
condition, is to admit them into any of his possessions or hold any
communication with them by word or writing, even though they should
return into these states in a different garb or should have entered
another order, unless with the King's permission." It is sad to have to
record that the Patriarch of Lisbon endorsed the invitation to the
Jesuits to avail themselves of this royal clemency.
The procurators of the missions who occupied a temporary house in Lisbon
had been already carried off to jail; and their money, chalices, sacred
vessels, all of which were intended for Asia and Brazil, were
confiscated. The Exodus proper began at the College of Elvas on
September 1. At night-fall a squadron of cavalry arrived; and taking the
inmates prisoners, marched them off without any intimation of whither
they were going. On the following day, Sunday, they were lodged in a
miserable shed, exhausted though they were by the journey, with nothing
but a few crusts to eat, after having suffered intensely from the heat
all day long. They were not even allowed to go to Mass. During the next
night and the following day, they continued their weary tramp and at
last arrived at Evora. There the young men were left at the college, and
the sixty-nine Professed were compelled to walk for six consecutive days
till they reached the Tagus. Many were old and decrepit and one of them
lost his mind on the journey. When they reached the river, they were put
in open boats and exposed all day long to the burning sun, with nothing
to eat or drink. They were then transferred to a ship which had been
waiting for them since the month of April. It was then late in
September.
Other exiles soon joined them, after going through similar experiences,
until there were one hundred and thirty-three in the same vessel. They
were all kept in the hold till they were out of sight of land. There
was no accommodation for them: the food was insufficient; the water was
foul; there were no dishes, so that six or seven had to sit around a tin
can, and take out what they could with a wooden spoon, and the same
vessel had to serve for the water they drank. The orders were to stop at
no port until they reached Civita Vecchia. However, after passing the
Straits of Gibraltar, it became evident that unless the captain wanted
to carry a cargo of corpses to Italy, he must take in supplies
somewhere: for many of the victims were sixty or seventy years of age.
There were even some octogenarians among them. Hence, on reaching
Alicante, in Spain, one of the Fathers went ashore. There was a college
of the Society in that city; and as soon as the news spread of the
arrival of the prisoners, the people rushed to the shore to supply their
wants, but the messenger was the only one allowed to be seen. They then
sailed away from Alicante. Off Corsica, a storm caught them and so
delayed their progress that a stop had to be made at Spezia for more
food. At last, on October 24, more than a month after they had left
Lisbon, they were flung haggard, emaciated and exhausted on the shores
of the Papal States at Civita Vecchia. Of course, they were received by
the people there with unbounded affection; and as Father Weld relates
"none exceeded the Dominican Fathers in their tender solicitude for the
sufferers." A marble slab in their church records their admiration for
these confessors of the Faith with whom the sons of St. Dominic declared
they were _devinctissimi_--"closely bound to them in affection."
On September 29, troops surrounded the College of Coimbra. The
astonished populace was informed that it was because the Fathers had
been fighting; that some were already killed and others wounded; and
the soldiers had been summoned to prevent further disorders. That night
amid pouring rain, the tramp of horses' hoofs was heard; and as the
people crowded to the windows, they saw the venerable men of the college
led away between squads of cavalry as if they were brigands or prisoners
of war. They arrived at the Tagus on October 7, where others were
already waiting. They numbered in all 121, and were crowded into two
small ships which were to carry them into exile. They had scarcely room
to move. Yet, when they arrived at Genoa, they were all packed into one
of the boats. At Leghorn, they were kept for a whole month in close
confinement on board the ship. When they started out, they were buffeted
by storms, and not until January 4, 1760 did they reach the papal
territory. They were in a more wretched state of filth and emaciation
than their predecessors.
These prisoners were the special criminals of the Society, namely--the
professed Fathers. The other Jesuits were officially admitted to be
without reproach and were exhorted, both by the civil and ecclesiastical
authorities, to abandon the Order and be dispensed from their vows. As
these non-Professed numbered at least three-fourths of the whole body,
the difficult problem presents itself of explaining how the Professed
who are looked up to by the rest of the Society for precept and example
should be monsters of iniquity and yet could train the remaining
three-fourths of the members in such a way as to make them models of
every virtue.
Pombal was convinced that he could separate the youth of the Society
from their elders; and he was extremely anxious to do so, because of the
family connections of many of them, and because of the loss to the
nation at one stroke of so much ability and talent. But he failed
egregiously. They were all gathered in the colleges of Coimbra and
Evora. No seclusion was observed. Everybody was free to visit them from
the world outside; and inducements of every kind were held out to them
to abandon the Society: family affection, worldly ambition, etc.--but
without avail. They had no regular superior, so they elected a
fourth-year theologian who had just been ordained a priest. Another was
made minister; and a third, master of novices. The house was kept in
excellent order; the religious discipline was perfect and the exercises
of the community went on with as much regularity as if nothing were
happening. Pombal sent commissioner after commissioner to shake the
constancy of the young men, but only two of the tempted ones weakened.
"Who is their superior?" he asked one day in a rage. The answer was:
"Joseph Carvalho--your namesake and relative." On October 20, a letter
from the cardinal was read in both houses. He expressed his astonishment
that these young Jesuits did not avail themselves of the royal favor to
desert; and he warned them that they were not suffering for their faith,
and that "their refusal of His Majesty's offer to release them from
their vows was not virtuous constancy but seditious obstinacy."
Finally, October 24 was fixed for their departure, and notice was given
that they could not expect to go to any civilized land, but would
probably be dropped on some desolate island off the African coast. That
shook the resolution of two of the band, but the rest stood firm. In the
morning, all went to Holy Communion and at an hour before sunset, the
word was given to start. They sang a Te Deum and then set out--130 in
all. They were preceded by a troop of cavalry; a line of foot soldiers
marched on either side; while here and there torches threw their glare
over this grim nocturnal procession. It took them four days to reach
Oporto, where they met their brethren from Braganza and Braga. There
were only ten from the former place, but sixty soldiers had been
detailed to guard them. Indeed, the troopers from Braga had to keep the
crowds back with drawn swords, so eager were the people along the road
to express their sympathy. At Oporto the young heroes had to witness the
desertion of four Professed Fathers; but that did not weaken their
resolution. They were all crammed into three small craft, but the
weather was too stormy to leave the port; and there they remained a
whole week, packed so close together that there was scarcely room to lie
side by side. The air became so foul that it was doubtful if they could
survive. Even their guards took sick, and, at last, a number of the
prisoners were transferred to a fort in the harbor.
At last to the number of 223 they sailed down the Douro. One of them
died, and his companions sang the Office of the Dead over him and buried
him in the sea. When the ship did not roll too much, Mass was said and
they went to Communion. All the exercises that are customary in
religious houses were scrupulously performed, and the Church festivals
were observed as if they were a community at home. They were quarantined
two weeks at Genoa without being permitted to go ashore. Then another
scholastic died, and they found that his earthly goods consisted of
nothing but a few bits of linen, that must have been foul by this time,
besides a discipline and a hair shirt. They cast anchor at Civita
Vecchia on February 7, having left inhospitable Portugal in October.
The band from Evora to the number of ninety-eight, of whom only three
were priests, had not such a rude experience except in the distress of
seeing some deserters, among them two Professed Fathers. The officer in
charge of the ship, unlike most of the government employees, was tender
and kind to them. How could he have been otherwise? His name was de
Britto--the same as that of the Portuguese martyr in India. It meant the
loss of his position, perhaps, but what did he care? When they reached
Lisbon, the nineteen who had been separated from the first detachment to
be kept in jail came aboard, and the little band numbered 115 all told,
when the ship hoisted anchor and made for the sea. They reached Civita
Vecchia where the two happy troops of valiant young Jesuits met in each
others arms. Their number was then 336. They were distributed among the
various establishments of Italy, the novices being sent to Sant' Andrea
in Rome. Two cardinals and a papal nuncio who were making their retreat
in the house at the time insisted on serving them at table, while the
Pope sent a message to the General to say: "These young men have
reflected great honor on the Society and have shown how well they have
been trained."
The fury of Pombal was not yet sated. Not an island of the Atlantic, not
a station in Africa or India, not a mission in the depths of the forests
of America that was not searched and looted by his commissioners, who
ruthlessly expelled the devoted missionaries who were found there. Men
venerable for age and acquirements were given over to brutal soldiers
who were ordered to shoot them if any attempt at escape was made. They
were dragged hundreds of miles through the wildest of regions, over
mountains, through raging torrents, amid driving storms; they were
starved and had nothing but the bare ground on which to rest; they were
searched again and again as if their rags held treasures; were made to
answer the roll call twice a day like convicts in jail; and then tossed
in the holds of crazy ill-provisioned ships with no place to rest their
weary heads, except on a coil of rope or in the filth of the cattle;
and when dead, they were to be flung to the sharks. When at last they
reached Lisbon they were forbidden to show themselves on deck, lest
their fellow-countrymen and their families might be shocked by their
degradation. They were then spirited away to the dungeons of St. Julian
and Jonquiera to rot, until death relieved them of their sufferings.
Those who were not placed in the crowded jails were sent in their rags
to find a refuge somewhere outside of their native land.
As has been said, there were two provinces in Portuguese South
America--Brazil and Maranhão. In the former, besides the Seminary of
Belem, the Society had six colleges and sixty-two residences with a
total of 445 members. Orders were given to the whole 445 to assemble at
Bahia, Pernambuco and San Sebastian. Everything was seized. At Bahia,
the novices were stripped of their habits and sent adrift, though the
families of some of them lived in far away Portugal. The rest were
confined in a house surrounded by armed troops while the bishop of the
city proclaimed that any one who would encourage the victims to
persevere in their vocation would be excommunicated. Then, one day,
without a moment's notice, all were ordered out of the house and sent to
jail in different places. There they remained for the space of three
months waiting for the missionaries from the interior to arrive. They
came in slowly, for some of them lived eight hundred miles away, and had
to tramp all that distance through the forests and over mountain ranges.
Before all had made their appearance, however, the first batches were
sent across to the mother country to make space. They started on March
16 and reached the Tagus on June 6. Those from Bahia had taken from
April to June, and it was fully three months before the convict ship
from Pernambuco arrived in port.
All this time the deported religious were kept between decks, and
soldiers stood at the gangway with drawn swords to prevent any attempt
to go up to get a breath of fresh air. Their food was nothing but
vegetables cooked in sea-water, for there was not enough of drinking
water even to slake their thirst. The result was that the ship had a
cargo of half-dead men when it anchored off Lisbon; but the unfortunate
wretches were kept imprisoned there for fifteen days with the port-holes
closed. They were then transferred to a Genoese ship and sent to Civita
Vecchia. It appears that the Provincial of these Brazilian Jesuits was
named Lynch; but strange to say, there is no mention of him in any of
the Menologies. The deportation from Pernambuco and San Sebastian were
repetitions of this organized brutality; and the same methods were
employed at Goa in India, and the other dependencies, such as Macao and
China. In the transportations from these posts in the Orient, the ships
had to stop at Bahia which had been witness of the first exportations;
but the victims in the China ships could learn nothing of what had
happened. Twenty-three of them died on one of the journeys from India.
It is noted that a Turk at Algiers and a Danish Lutheran sea-captain,
had shown the greatest humanity to the victims whose fellow countrymen
seemed transformed into savage beasts. The prisoners had been kept in
confinement twenty months before they left Goa; and when they arrived at
Lisbon on October 18, 1764, they were taken off in long boats at the
dead of night, and lodged in the foulest dungeons of the fortress of St.
Julian.
But these were not the only victims of Carvalho. There were prisoners
from every grade of society, and their number reached the appalling
figure of nine thousand. Among them were eminent ecclesiastics, bishops
and canons and some of the most distinguished laymen of the kingdom. A
description of the prisons in which they were confined for years or till
they died has been given to posterity by some of the victims. Father
Weld in his "Suppression of the Society in Portugal" quotes extensively
from their letters. The jails were six in number: Belem, Almeida,
Azeitano, St. George, Jonquiera and St. Julian. They had annexes, also,
along the African coasts or on the remote islands of the Atlantic.
Belem, the Portuguese name for Bethlehem, so called because it had once
been an abbey, was about four miles from Lisbon towards the ocean. It
had the distinction of keeping its prisoners behind iron bars, but
exposed to the public like wild beasts in a menagerie; so that the
public could come and look at them and feed them if so disposed. The
Portuguese criminals were given a pittance by the government, to
purchase food, but the foreigners had to beg from the spectators for the
means to support life. It was admirably contrived to induce insanity.
Jonquiera lay between Belem and Lisbon. The cells were numerous in this
place. Moreira, the king's former confessor, and Malagrida were among
the inmates. The Marquis de Lorna who was also confined there says
"there were nineteen cells, each about seven paces square, and so
tightly closed that a light had to be kept burning continually;
otherwise they would have been in absolute darkness. When the prisoners
were first put in them, the plaster was still wet and yielded to the
slightest pressure. The cold was intense. Worst of all for a Catholic
country, the sacraments were allowed the prisoners only once a year."
The Marquis says that during the sixteen years he spent there "he never
heard Mass." In these dungeons there were 221 Jesuits, 88 of whom died
in their chains. The Castle of St. Julian stood on the banks of the
Tagus and the walls were washed by the tide. In this place, there were
125 Jesuits of all nations; men of high birth, of great virtue and
intellectual ability. The cells were situated below the sea-level; and
were damp, unventilated, choked with filth and swarming with vermin.
Some of the Fathers passed nineteen years in those tombs. The drinking
water was putrid; the prisoners' clothes were in rags; often not
sufficient for decency; many had no under garments and no shoes; their
hair and beards were never cut; the food was scant and of the worst
quality, and was often carried off before there was time to eat it. The
oil of the single lamp in the cells was so limited that to save it, the
wick was reduced to two or three threads. The same conditions prevailed
in the other prisons. Meantime the jailers were making money on the
supplies supposed to be served to the prisoners. Such was prison life in
Portugal during the twenty years of Pombal's administration.
One of the particularly outrageous features of these imprisonments was
that Pombal preferred to hold foreigners rather than native Portuguese.
The foreigners, having no friends in the country, would not, in all
probability, be claimed by their relatives; and as the ministers of
nearly all the nations of Europe were of the same mind as himself, he
had no fear of political intervention. Thus we find in a letter of
Father Kaulen, a German Jesuit, which was published by Christopher de
Murr, that in one section of St. Julian, besides fifty-four Portuguese
Jesuits, there were thirteen Germans, one Italian, three Frenchmen, two
Spaniards, and three Chinese. These Chinese Jesuits must have made
curious reflections on the meaning of the term "Christian nations."
"There are others in the towers," adds Father Kaulen, "but I cannot find
out who they are, or how many, or to what country they belong."
The three Frenchmen, Fathers du Gad and de Ranceau along with Brother
Delsart were set free at the demand of Marie Leczinska, the wife of
Louis XV; it was through them that Father Kaulen was able to send his
letter to the provincial of the Lower Rhine. He himself was probably
liberated later by the intervention of Maria Theresa, but there is no
record of it. His letter is of great value as he had personal experience
of what he writes. His experience was a long one, for he entered the
prison in 1759; and this communication to his provincial is dated
October 12, 1766. In it he writes:--
"I was taken prisoner by a soldier with a drawn sword and brought to
Fort Olreida on the frontier of Portugal. There I was put in a frightful
cell filled with rats which got into my bed and ate my food. I could not
chase them away, it was so dark. We were twenty Jesuits, each one in a
separate cell. During the first four months we were treated with some
consideration. After that, they gave us only enough food to keep us from
dying of hunger. They took away our breviaries, medals, etc. One of the
Fathers resisted so vigorously when they tried to deprive him of his
crucifix that they desisted. The sick got no help or medicine.
"After three years they transferred nineteen of us to another place
because of a war that had broken out. We travelled across Portugal
surrounded by a troop of cavalry, and were brought to Lisbon; and after
passing the night in a jail with the worst kind of criminals, we were
sent to St. Julian, which is on the seashore. It is a horrible hole,
underground, dark and foul. The food is bad, the water swarming with
worms. We have half a pound of bread a day. We receive the sacraments
only when we are dying. The doctor lives outside but if we fall sick
during the night, he is not called. The prison is filled with worms and
insects and little animals such as I never saw before. The walls are
dripping wet, so that our clothes soon rot. One of the Fathers died and
his face was so brilliant that one of the soldiers exclaimed: 'That's
the face of a saint.' We are not unhappy, and the three French Fathers
who left us envied our lot.
"Very few of us have even the shreds of our soutanes left. Indeed we
have scarcely enough clothes for decency. At night a rough covering full
of sharp points serves as a blanket; and the straw on which we sleep as
well as the blanket that covers us soon become foul, and it is very hard
to get them renewed. We are not allowed to speak to any one. The jailor
is extremely brutal and seems to make a point of adding to our
sufferings; only with the greatest reluctance does he give us what we
need. Yet we could be set free in a moment if we abandoned the Society.
Some of the Fathers who were at Macao and had undergone all sorts of
sufferings at the hands of the pagans, such as prison chains and torture
say to us that perhaps God found it better to have them suffer in their
own country for nothing, than among idolaters for the Faith.
"We ask the prayers of the Fathers of the province, but not because we
lament our condition. On the contrary, we are happy. As for myself,
though I would like to see my companions set free, I would not change
places with you outside. We wish all our Fathers good health so that
they may work courageously for God in Germany to make up for the little
glory he receives here in Portugal.
Your Reverence's most humble servant
Lawrence Kaulen,
Captive of Jesus Christ."
Pombal was determined now to make a master-stroke to discredit the
Portuguese Jesuits. He would disgrace and put to death as a criminal
their most distinguished representative, Father Malagrida, now over
seventy years of age, who had already passed two years in the dungeons
of Jonquiera. Malagrida was regarded by the people as a saint. He had
labored for many years in the missions of Brazil and was marvelously
successful in the work of converting the savages. Unfortunately he had
been recalled to Portugal in 1749 by the queen mother to prepare her for
the end of her earthly career. As Malagrida knew how Carvalho's brother
was acting in Brazil, he was evidently a dangerous man to have so near
the Court. Hence when the earthquake occurred and the holy old
missionary dared to tell the people that possibly it was a punishment of
God for the sins of the people, Carvalho banished him to Setubal and
kept him there for two years. When the supposed plot against the king's
life occurred, Malagrida was sent to prison as being concerned in it,
though he had never been in Lisbon since his banishment. He was
condemned to death with the other supposed conspirators; but his
character as a priest, and his acknowledged sanctity made the king
forbid the execution of the sentence. Pombal, however, found a way out
of the difficulty. A book was produced which was said to have been
written by Malagrida during his imprisonment. It was crammed with
utterances that only a madman could have written: In any case it could
not have been produced by the occupant of a dark cell, where there was
no ink and no paper. When it was presented to the Inquisition whose
death sentences the king himself could not revoke, the judges refused to
consider the case at all; whereupon they were promptly removed by Pombal
who made his own brother chief inquisitor; and from him and two other
tools, promptly drew a condemnation of Malagrida for heresy, schism,
blasphemy and gross immorality.
The sentence of death was passed on September 20, 1761, and on the same
day the venerable priest was brought to hear the formal proclamation of
it in the hall of supplication. There he was told that he was degraded
from his priestly functions, and was condemned to be led through the
public streets of the city, with a rope around his neck, to the square
called do Rocco, where he was to be strangled by the executioner, and
after he was dead, his body was to be burned to ashes, so that no memory
of him or his sepulchre might remain. He heard the sentence without
emotion and quietly protested his innocence. On the very next day,
September 21, the execution took place. Platforms were erected around
the square. Cavalry and infantry were massed here and there in large
bodies; each soldier had eight rounds of ammunition. Pombal presided.
The nobility, the members of the courts, and officers of the State were
compelled to be present, and great throngs of people crowded the square
and filled the abutting avenues and streets.
When everything was ready, a gruesome procession started from the
prison. Malagrida appeared with the _carocha_, or high cap of the
criminal, on his head, and a gag in his mouth. With him were fifty-two
others who had been condemned for various crimes; but only he was to
die. They were called from their cells merely to accentuate his
disgrace. Having arrived at the place of execution, the sentence was
again read to him; and when he was relieved of the gag, he calmly
protested his innocence and gave himself up to the executioners,
uttering the words of Our Lord on the Cross: "Father, into Thy hands, I
commend my spirit." He was quickly strangled; then fire was set to his
lifeless body and the ashes were scattered to the winds. He was
seventy-two years of age, and had spent forty-one of them working for
the salvation of his fellowmen.
All this happened in Portugal which once gloried in having the great
Francis Xavier represent it before the world; which exulted in a son
like de Britto, the splendid apostle of the Brahmans, who waived aside a
mitre in Europe but bent his neck with delight to receive the stroke of
an Oriental scimitar. The same Portugal which inscribed on its roll of
honor the forty Jesuits who suffered death while on their way to
evangelize Portugal's possessions in Brazil, now made a holiday to
witness the hideous torture of the venerable and saintly Malagrida. The
Jesuits of Portugal had done much for their country. They had borne an
honorable part in the struggle that threw off the Spanish yoke: the
magnificent Vieira was a greater emancipator of the native races than
was Las Casas; and he and his brethren had won more territories for
Portugal than da Gama and Cabral had ever discovered. But all that was
forgotten, and they were driven out of their country, or kept chained in
fetid dungeons till they died or were burned at the stake in the
market-place, in the presence of the king and the people. No wonder that
Portugal has descended to the place she now occupies among the nations.