1753-1794.
On June 8, 1753, Edward Gibbon, then sixteen years of age, and an
undergraduate of Magdalen College, Oxford, was received into the
Roman Catholic Church by a Jesuit named Baker, one of the chaplains
to the Sardinian Embassy. His change of religion led to his removal
from the University, and decided his father to place him under the
care of M. Pavillard, a Calvinist minister at Lausanne. Escorted by
M. Frey, a Swiss gentleman of Basle, Gibbon left England on June 19,
1753. His first letter announces his safe arrival.
1.
_To his Father._
[Lausanne], July 30th, 1753.