86 
WANDERINGS IN 
SECOND 
.TOURNEY, 
Pombal was exactly the tool these sappers of every 
public and private virtue wanted. He had the 
naked sword of power in his own hand, and his 
heart was hard as flint. He struck a mortal blovr, 
and the Society of Jesus, throughout the Portuguese 
dominions, was no more. 
One morning all the fathers of the college in 
Pernambuco, some of them very old and feeble, 
were suddenly ordered into the refectory. They 
had notice beforehand of the fatal storm, in pity from 
the governor, but not one of them abandoned his 
charge. They had done their duty, and had nothing 
to fear. They bowed with resignation to the will of 
heaven. As soon as they had all reached the refectory, 
they were there locked up, and never more did they 
see their rooms, their friends, their scholars, or ac¬ 
quaintance. In the dead of the following night, a 
strong guard of soldiers literally drove them through 
the streets to the water’s edge. They were then 
conveyed in boats aboard a ship, and steered for 
Bahia. Those who survived the barbarous treat¬ 
ment they experienced from Pombal’s creatures, 
■were at last ordered to Lisbon. The college of 
Pernambuco was plundered, and some time after an 
elephant was kept there. 
Thus the arbitrary hand of power, in one night, 
smote and swept away the sciences; to which suc¬ 
ceeded the low vulgar buffoonery of a showman. 
Virgil and Cicero made way for a wild beast from 
Angola ! and now a guard is on duty at the very gate 
where, in times long past, the poor were daily fed!!! 
