626 



POMBAL. 



mediator between the pope and the empress Maria 

 Theresa. Carvalho here gained general esteem, and, 

 his first wife being dead, obtained the hand uf the 

 youthful countess of Daun. He was obliged, how- 

 ever, to refute the calumnies which a Portuguese 

 of rank had circulated against him in Vienna, and 

 to prove his claims to nobility. The queen now 

 procured his nomination as ambassador to the 

 Spanish court ; but the king and his minister hated 

 him ; he was recalled, and even the influence of 

 the queen was insufficient to overcome the aversion 

 of the king (John V.) It was in vain that Pombal 

 insinuated himself into the favour of the Jesuits, 

 ;iml, by his entire devotion to the order, imposed 

 upon them to such a degree as to obtain an intimate 

 acquaintance with their organization, of which he 

 afterwards made use when he was minister. The 

 high nobility persecuted him with irreconcilable 

 hatred ; but Carvalho concealed his desire of re- 

 venge, and passed for the most amiable, modest, 

 and pious courtier in the service of the queen. 

 John V. died in 1750, and, through the influence of 

 the queen dowager, Carvalho finally obtained from 

 his successor, Joseph I., the long coveted post of 

 secretary of state for foreign affairs. The confessor 

 of the king, Moreira, a Jesuit, was his friend ; and 

 Carvalho courted the order with such zeal, that he 

 was called the great Jesuit. He soon rendered the 

 feeble and sensual king (particularly after the death 

 of the queen mother, 1754) entirely subject to his 

 influence. Joseph I., from fear of his brother dom 

 Pedro, to whom Carvalho's enemies attached them- 

 selves, fell in with the most daring projects of his 

 minister ; and the latter now proceeded to the ac- 

 complishment of his four favourite objects ; the 

 expulsion of the Jesuits ; the humiliation of the 

 high nobility ; the restoration of the prosperity of 

 Portugal, and the absolute command of the state, 

 in the name of the monarch. The kingdom was 

 reduced to the lowest condition. England, the 

 Jesuits, and the high nobility, monopolized the 

 wealth of the country, which was without an army 

 or a fleet, without commerce or agriculture. The 

 minister acted on. the principles of the mercantile 

 system, and although obliged to abandon many of 

 his designs, succeeded in some of them. It required 

 a man of his character to withstand the attacks to 

 which he was exposed, from the inquisition, to 

 which he prohibited its autos da fe; from the 

 Jesuits, whom he expelled from their missions in 

 Paraguay ; from the high nobility, whom he depriv- 

 ed of their princely possessions in the colonies ; and 

 from the prelacy, whose powers he abridged. Then 

 came the earthquake of November 1, 1755, which 

 buried 30,000 human beings, and destroyed pro- 

 perty to the value of 400,000,000 dollars. Carvalho 

 left the care of his own family and property, and 

 appeared in the midst of the general despair, as a 

 saviour, displaying a vigour and resolution, which, 

 alone, ought to have conciliated his enemies. He 

 was to be seen for a whole week after this calamity, 

 uninterruptedly employed in every place where aid 

 was needed, in contriving means of relief, and re- 

 storing order ; and, under the most disastrous cir- 

 cumstances and greatest difficulties, displayed the 

 most active benevolence and most extraordinary 

 energy. The king looked upon him as a favourite 

 of Heaven, and submitted implicitly to his direction. 

 Carvalho was now created count of Oeyras, and, in 

 1756, first minister. He then removed every one 

 who ventured to obstruct his plans. It was neces- 

 sary to proceed with the most unyielding rigour, 

 since the profligate nobility perpetrated assassina- 

 tions without hesitation, and plundered the people 

 without mercy. But, with the pride of the great, 



whom he humbled, and the avarfe, which his 

 commercial regulations exasperated, was now con- 

 nected the discontent of the country people, excited 

 by his establishment of monopolies, which, however, 

 was done only to counteract the actual monopoly of 

 the English. The discontented vine-dressers com- 

 mitted excesses in Oporto ; but Pombal suppressed 

 the riots by the most comprehensive laws against 

 treason, which made the will of the king valid 

 against all constitutions and privileges, lie also 

 exposed, to the astonishment of Europe, the conduct 

 of the Jesuits (who endeavoured to persuade the 

 public that he was Antichrist), in their government 

 in Paraguay. In his expose of this matter, there are, 

 certainly, many exaggerations; and there is no doubt 

 that the fathers ruled these provinces much better 

 than the government of Spain or Portugal would 

 have done. Carvalho finally determined to remove 

 the Jesuits entirely from the person of the king. 

 They were deprived of the place of confessors, and 

 were ordered (September 16, 1757) to retire to 

 their colleges. Several Portuguese grandees, who 

 had joined in intrigues against the minister, were 

 banished from Lisbon. Pombal now pushed his 

 measures with vigour ; as his attempts to encourage 

 agriculture had been unsuccessful, he proceeded to 

 extirpate the vine, and was, finally, completely 

 victorious. A conspiracy against the life of the 

 king, who was wounded on the night of September 

 3d, 1758, by assassins, whose blows he escaped 

 only through the fidelity of his attendant, or the 

 fright of his mules, delivered the minister's mortal 

 enemies into his hands. Three months after the 

 attempt, Pombal, on the night of the celebration of 

 his daughter's marriage, at which the principal 

 nobility were present, arrested the marquis of 

 Tavora and his family, the Jesuit Malagnda, and, 

 the next day, the duke of Aveiro and others. The 

 minister and a member of the supreme judicial tri- 

 bunal conducted the examination, and, after a hasty 

 trial, a dreadful sentence was passed, and executed 

 before the castle of Belem (January 13th, 1759). 

 The duke of Aveiro and the marquis of Tavora 

 were broken on the wheel, as the principals of the 

 conspiracy ; the sons and the son-in-law, with the 

 servants of the former, were strangled, as accom- 

 plices ; the wife of the marquis was beheaded and 

 a servant of the duke burnt, as were also the dead 

 bodies of the others. The Jesuits were suspected 

 of being the authors of the plot ; but the marquis of 

 Tavora, who had thrown out some accusations 

 against them, had retracted them in writing. Still 

 the minister denounced them to the pope, as the 

 contrivers of the scheme, and not being able to 

 procure immediately a bull, permitting the secular 

 tribunals to proceed against them, he caused some 

 of them to be executed in prison. Malagrida, who 

 had prophesied the death of the king, was con- 

 demned to the flames by the inquisition, and burnt 

 in 1761. Pombal had already banished the whole 

 order from the kingdom, as rebels and enemies of 

 the king, by a royal decree, of September 3d, 1759, 

 and, as they did not comply with the mandate, 

 caused them to be seized by soldiers, and transport- 

 ed, to the number of 1854, to the States of the 

 Church. These proceedings gave rise to a pro- 

 tracted dispute with the pope ; in 1760, Pombal 

 transported the papal nuncio beyond the frontiers, 

 and was on the point of dissolving all connexion 

 with Rome, when Clement XIII. died, and Clem- 

 ent XIV., his successor, abolished the order in 

 1773. Portugal was soon after involved in a short 

 war with Spain, and, at a subsequent period, in a 

 second war, on account of the minister's haughty 

 conduct towards that government. The Portuguese 



