82 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



were called into action. Ungenerous laureate, the nar- 

 row policy of the times has kept your countrymen in 

 the dark with regard to the true character of the Society 

 of Jesus ; and you draw the bandage still tighter over 

 their eyes, by a malicious insinuation. I lived, and 

 taught, and died in Brazil, where you state that none 

 but the good principles of my order were called into 

 action, and still, in most absolute contradiction to this, 

 you remark we believed the idolatry we taught in Brazil. 

 Thus we brought none but good principles into action, 

 and still taught idolatry. 



" Again, you state there is no individual to whose 

 talents Brazil is so greatly and permanently indebted as 

 mine, and that I must be regarded as the founder of 

 that system so successfully pursued by the Jesuits in 

 Paraguay ; a system productive of as much good as is 

 compatible with pious fraud. Thus you make me, at 

 one and the same time, a teacher of none but good 

 principles, and a teacher of idolatry, and a believer in 

 idolatry, and still the founder of a system for which 

 Brazil is greatly and permanently indebted to me, 

 though, by the bye, the system was only productive of 

 as much good as is compatible with pious fraud ! 



" What means all this 1 After reading such incom- 

 parable nonsense, should^ your countrymen wish to be 

 properly informed concerning the Society of Jesus, 

 there are in England documents enough to show that I 

 the system of the Jesuits was a system of Christian 

 charity towards their fellow- creatures, administered in 

 a manner which human prudence judged best calculated 

 to ensure success ; and that the idolatry which you un- 

 charitably affirm they taught, was really and truly the 

 very same faith which the Catholic church taught for 



