Jan. 1759. A fummary of the public affairs in 1758. to admire. And it should be obferved, that he had not, like M. Daun, the direction of only one army upon his hands, but was obliged from time to time to take fo extenfive a view of his affairs in feve ral diftant quarters, as might enable him to caufe his troops co-operate in a very critical manner for the affistance of each other; a task which he performed with fo nice a judgment, that notwithstanding the multitude of his foes, they were farther from their point in the end of the year than at its commencement. In the beginning of the prefent war, it was pofitively afferted on the fide of their Britannic and Pruffian Majefties, that there were fome ftipulations detrimental to the security of the Proteftant religion in the treaty of alliance concluded between the courts of Vienna and Verfailles. Thofe two courts as pofitively denied that this was fact. Whatever might be contained in the treaty, a fe vere blow to the Protestant intereft in Germany appears to be the natural confequence of the grand confederacy's being able to carry political matters the length it has in view. The voluntary favours which Proteftants have long been in ufe to receive from the houfes of Auftria and Bourbon, are well known. In 1757 the Emperor and his aulic council iffued a decree, for putting the King of Pruffia, as Elector of Brandenburg, under the ban of the empire; that B, for depriving him of thofe territories which render him a member of the Germanic body. In 1758, at a very critical time, the 21st of Auguft, when the court of Vienna reckoned upon eafily carrying every thing before her, the King of - G. Britain, as Elector of Brunswic Lunenburg, the Landgrave of Heffe, the reiguing Dukes of Brunfwic-Wolfenbuttle and Saxe-Gotha, and the Count of Lippe-Buckeburg, were injoined, by the fame authority, and under the like penalty, to change fides in the war. That fame day, the King of Denmark, as Duke of Holftein, was charged to procore for the Duke of Mecklemburg, reftitution of the contributions and recruits raised in his country by the Pruffans, and to protect him for the future 17 against fuch enterprises. The 22d, injunctions were iffued for twelve princes more, particularly defigned, to quit the Hanoverian and Pruffian armies, on pain of being fined 1cco gold marks each in cafe of difobedience. One would be apt to think, that the Imperial court wanted to have all thofe princes fairly concluded under the penalties fpecified, before the vast change of affairs fhe expect ed inftantly to take place might oblige them to alter their conduct, and fo take from her one colourable pretext for making them feverely fuffer. But in the mean time, as has been obferved, the King of Pruffia was then on full march, to strike a blow confounding to his enemies. Since the iffue of the battle of Zorndorff was known, the Emperor and his aulic council have abated a good deal of their ardour, but without dropping their point. On the 9th of No. vember the evangelic body at Ratisbon iffued an arret, by which they obliged themfelves to adhere to the laws, and not to fuffer, under any pretext, that the power of putting under the ban of the empire fhould refide wholly in the Emperor, and infifted ftrongly on the exprefs terms, and literal fenfe, of the capitulation which he figned at his election, and which they fay renounces this power. His Danish Majefty has given for anfwer to the Emperor, that as Duke of Holftein he is too weak to take upon him the protection of the duchy of Mccklemburg; and that as King he has no orders to receive from any one. It remains, that we take notice of one late event more in Germany, which is like to have confequences. In the be ginning of Auguft, the Emperor, in confequence of a conclufum of the aulic council, granted to the Duchefs-dowager of Saxe-Weymar, who was then but nineteen years of age, letters of emancipation, by which he impowered her to act as guardian to the Prince her fon, who was a year old the 3d of September laft; and in the mean time committed the government of the country to the King of Poland, Elector of Saxony, though the late Duke of Saxe-Weymar conftituted the King of Denmark, and the the reigning Duke of Brunfwic, his executors, and his fon's guardians. Several remonstrances have been made on this head, by the parties who thought themselves aggrieved; but we are in formed, that the aulic council, without paying any regard to them, has refolved to abide by its firft decifion. [To be continued. ] The IDLER. Of imprisonment for debt. Ome ftriking obfervations on the cruelty and ill policy of punishing infolvency with imprisonment, at the will of the creditor, were publifhed in the IDLER of Sept. 16. N° 23. "It is vain," fays this writer, "to continue an inftitution which experience fhews to be ineffectual. We have now imprifoned one generation of debtors after another, but we do not find that their numbers leflen; we have now learned that rafhness and imprudence will not be deterred from taking credit; let us try whether fraud and avarice can be more easily reftrained from giving it." Since the publication of this paper, it is faid, that an inquiry has been made, by which it appears, that more than 20,000 * are, at this time, prifoners for debt. The author has therefore purfued his fubject, in N° 39. as follows: WE often look with indifference on the fucceffive parts of that, which, if the whole were feen together, would fbake us with emotion. A debtor is dragged to prifon, pitied for a moment, and then forgotten; another follows him, and is loft alike in the caverns of oblivion: but when the whole mals of calamity rifes up at once, when twenty thoufand reafonable beings are heard all groaning in unneceflary mifery, not by the infirmity of nature, but the mistake or negligence of policy, who can forbear to pity and lament, to wonder and abhor? There is here no need of declamatory vehemence; we live in an age of commerce and computation; let us, there fore, coolly inquire what is the fum of evil which the imprisonment of debtors brings upon our country. It feems to be the opinion of the la* [25,000, fay fome accounts. Į ter computifts, that the inhabitants of England do not exceed fix millions, of which twenty thousand is the three hundredth part. What fhall we fay of the humanity or the wisdom of a nation that voluntarily facrifices one in every three hundred to lingering destruction ! The misfortunes of an individual do not extend their influence to many; fects of confanguinity and friendship, yet, if we confider the relations and efand the general reciprocation of wants and benefits, which make one man dear or neceffary to another, it may realonably be fuppofed, that every man lan guifhing in prifon gives trouble of fome kind to two others who love or need him. By this multiplication of mifery, we fee diftrefs extended to the hundredth part of the whole fociety. If we estimate at a fhilling a-day what is loft by the inaction, and confumed in the fupport of each man thus chained down to involuntary idleness, the public lofs will rife in one year to three hundred thousand pounds; in ten years to more than a fixth part of our circulating coin. I am afraid, that those who are best acquainted with the state of our prifons, will confefs, that my conjecture is too near the truth, when I fuppofe, that the corrofion of refentment, the heaviness of forrow, the corruption of confined air, the want of exercife, and fometimes of food, the contagion of difeafes from which there is no retreat, and the feverity of tyrants, against whom there can be no refiftance, and all the complicated horrors of a prifon, put an end every year to the life of one in four of thofe that are fhut up from the common comforts of human life. Thus perifh yearly five thousand men, overborne with forrow, confumed by famine, or putrefied by filth; many of them in the most vigorous and useful part of life; for the thoughtless and imprudent are commonly young, and the active and bufy are feldom old. According to the rule generally received, which fuppofes that one in thirty dies yearly, the race of man may be faid to be renewed at the end of thirty years. Jan. 1759. Of imprisonment for debt, &c. years. Who would have believed till now, that of every English generation an hundred and fifty thousand perish in our gaols! that, in every century, a nation eminent for fcience, ftudious of commerce, ambitious of empire, fhould willingly lofe, in noifome dungeons, five hundred thousand of its inhabitants; a number greater than has ever been deftroyed in the fame time by the peftilence and fword! A very late occurrence may fhew us the value of the number which we thus condemn to be ufelefs. In the re-eftablishment of the trained bands, thirty thousand are confidered as a force fufficient against all exigencies [xix. 346.]: while, therefore, we detain twenty thousand in prison, we fhut up in darknefs and ufeleffuefs two thirds of an army which ourselves judge equal to the defence of our country. The monaftic inftitutions have been often blamed, as tending to retard the increase of mankind. And perhaps retirement ought rarely to be permitted, except to thofe whofe employment is confiftent with abftraction, and who, though folitary, will not be idle; to those whom infirmity makes useless to o thers, or to thofe who have paid their due proportion to fociety, and who, having lived for others, may be honour ably difmiffed, to live for themfelves. But whatever be the evil or the folly of these retreats, thofe have no right to cenfure them whofe prifons contain greater numbers than the monafteries of other countries. It is, furely, lefs fool ih, and lefs criminal, to permit inaction, than compel it; to comply with doubtful opinions of happiness, than condemn to certain and apparent mife. ry; to indulge the extravagancies of er roneous piety, than to multiply and enforce temptations to wickedness. The mifery of gaols is not half their evil; they are filled with every corrup tion which poverty and wickedness can generate between them; with all the hameless and profligate enormities that can be produced by the impudence of ignominy, the rage of want, and the malignity of despair. In a prifon, the 19 awe of the public eye is loft, and the power of the law is fpent; there are few fears, there are no blushes. The lewd inflame the lewd, the audacious harden the audacious. Every one fortifies himfelf as he can against his own sensibility, endeavours to practise on others the arts which are practifed on himself, and gains the kindness of his affociates by fimilitude of manners. Thus fome fink amidst their misery, and others furvive only to propagate villany. It may be hoped, that our lawgivers will fome time take away from us this power of ftarving and depraving one another; but if there be any reason why this inveterate evil fhould not be removed in this age, which true policy has enlightened beyond any former time, let thofe whofe writings form the opinions and the modes of their contemporaries, endeavour to transfer the infamy of fuch imprisonment from the debtor to the creditor, till universal infamy fhall purfue the wretch, whose wantonnefs of power, or revenge of disappointment, condemns another to torture and to ruin, till he shall be hunted through the world as an enemy to man, and find in riches no fhelter from contempt. Surely, he whofe debtor has perished in prifon, though he may acquit himself of deliberate murder, muft at least have his mind clouded with discontent, when he confiders how much another has fuffered from him; when he thinks on the wife bewailing her husband, or the chil dren begging the bread which their father would have earned. If there are. any made fo obdurate by avarice or cruelty, as to revolve thefe confequences without dread or pity, I mult leave them to be awakened by fome other power; for I write only to human beings. Written whilft a lady's picture was drawing. Abfrag Abstract of the genuine legal fentence pro nounced by the bigh court of judicature of Portugal upon the confpirators against the life of bis Moft Faithful Majefty; with the true motives for the fame. A Greed by the perfons of the council and fenate of our Lord the King, Ec. after examining the proceedings, which, according to form of law, and his Majefty's decrees, were fuccinctly carried on against the criminals, Jofeph Mafcarenhas, heretofore Duke of Aveiro; Lady Eleanor of Tavora, heretofore Marchioness of that title; &c. &c. together with the reft of the depofitions, and papers annexed; allegations, articles, and defences made by the said criminals, &c. &c. &c. That it appears, by the confeffions of the major part of the faid criminals, and by many witneffes, That the Duke d'Aveiro * had conceived an implacable hatred to the King, on account of his Majefty's defeating his fchemes to arrogate to himself, in the government of the kingdom, all the influence, which, by means of his uncle F. Gafpar da Incar naçaô, he had bad during the latter years of the last reign, and to caufe the commendams, held as grants for life by the houfe of Aveiro, to be adjudged inhe rent to the crown-lands and patrimonial eftate of the faid houfe, and in which commendams (as being fubject to the fame regulations as all ecclefiaftical be. nefices) he could claim no right with out founding it on a perfonal title he ab. folutely had not; and on account of the King's having put a stop to the marriage he had adjusted between his eldeft fon, and the Duke of Cadaval's filter, in order to blend with his own house, as an occafional augmentation thereof, the [Don Jofeph Mafcarenhas and Lencaftre (or Lancaster), Duke of Aveiro, Marquis of Torres Novas and of Gouvea, and Earl of Santa Cruz, hereditary Lord Steward of the King's household, which is the higheft office in the palace, and Pre fident of the Palace-court, or laft tribunal of appeal in the kingdom, which is the fecond state-officer of the realm; was related himself to the Tavoras, and married to a fifter of the elder Mar quis of that title. He was in the 51ft year of his age; of the lowest middle fize, well made in his perfon, of an agreeable countenance and live difpofition.] houfe of Cadaval; the actual lord of which, being actually a minor, ftill liable to the fmall-pox, (fo fatal to his family), and moreover unmarried, d' Aveiro endeavoured, at the fame time, to hinder from marrying, by fomenting law fuits and executions against him. It farther appears, that the faid Duke endeavoured to gain over all difcontented and difaffected perfons, affecting to fay that it was the fame thing to him, to be ordered to go to court, as to have his legs cut off; and flattered himself, and confented to be told by others, that he could rife no higher, but by afcending the throne, and becoming King himfelf. In purfuance of this infernal hatred, and notwithstanding the implacable a. verfion and declared war fubfifting between him and the Jefuits, which, during the miniftry of his uncle F. Gafpar da Incarnaçao, cauled fuch a general fcandal throughout the kingdom; and notwithstanding that, even after the death of the faid F. Gafpar, the fame implacable averfion ftill fubfifted; yet as foon as the Jefuits were dismissed from being confeffors to their Majesties and their Royal Highneftes, and forbid all access to court (on account of the schemes they had laid for alienating certain foreign courts from the friendship and union they had with his Majesty, and of the formal rebellions and open wars they had kindled in Uraguay* and Maranhao), the Duke, who was bound by reafon or his office to fhun the fociety of the Jefu its, as men infected with a plague, acted fo very much the reverfe, that, by a reconciliation quite fudden, and incompatible with his inflexible pride, he art fully and induftriously patched up a reunion and intimacy with them, paying them frequent vifits in all their houses; receiving them at his house; holding Jong conferences wirh them; cautioning his fervants to acquaint him, whenever any Jefuit came to his houfe; and recommending an inviolable fecrecy concerning the vifits which paffed between him and them. The effects of this reconciliation were, that [xvii. 607. xviii. 461.] Jan. 1759. The process against the Portuguese confpirators. that all the aforefaid perfons linked together, and declared themselves enemies to his Majefty's perfon and government; and unanimously agreed, at conferences held in the Jefuits two colleges, and at the Duke's house, that the only means for changing the government was to put the King to death; all perfifting to make a common cause of this project, and the Jefuits promifing the Duke indemnity for that infernal parricide, with the reflec tion, that all things would be quiet, as foon as an end fhould be put to his Majefty's life; and the Jefuits giving it as their opinion, that whoever fhould kill the King, would not fo much as fin, even lightly. The Duke and the Jefuits, in this confederacy, proceeded to draw the Marchionels of Tavora * into it: and in spite of the innate and ancient averfion fubfifting between her and the Duke, as well on account of their oppofite geniafes, as by reason of their jarring interefts, the art of the Jefuits on one hand, and the art of the Duke on the o ther, wrought fo effectually, that they gained their point. The Marchionefs having entered into the confpiracy, both she and the Jefuits fet about perfuading all their acquaintance and friends, that Gabriel Malagrida, a Jefuit, her confeffor, was a man of great felf-denial, and a faint: and, in confequence of his counfels, fhe held a daily allembly at her own houfe for Manders and calumnies against the King, in order to excite averfion and hatred to his perfon and government. The ordinary converfation at her house was one continued cabal of treacheries and plots [Dona Leonor de Tavora, Marchionefs of Tavora, in her own right, and wife to the Marquis, was in the 59th year of her age. She was of the lower middle fize, and thin, extremely genteel, and in her youth had been very beautiful. In the duties of life the appeared highly amiable, being an extreme good mother, and demonstrated berfelf as good a wife by accompanying her hufband to India at the age of 50, when he was appointed Viceroy of the Portuguefe dominions in that country; of which undertaking, before hers, there had been but a fingle example. Her deportment in general was courteous and affable, and she was allowed to be a lady of a good under Landing] VOL. XXI. 21 against his Majefty's perfon; and it was there agreed, that it would be highly expedient to put an end to his life. Many of the meetings for concerting the plot against the King were held at her houfe. She was alfo present at meetings at the Duke of Aveiro's; and confederated with the Jefuits, John de Matos, John Alexandre, and others, befides the aforefaid Gabriel Malagrida, her conftant and abfolute director. She even fet up for one of the three ringleaders of the confpiracy; endeavouring, by her authority and artifices, to draw into it all fhe could poffibly decoy; and contributed fixteen moidores to reward the monsters who fired at the King. The faid Marchioness having arrogated to herself the defpotic direction of the Marquis Francis-Affizes of Tavora*, her husband, of her fons, her daughter, her fon-in-law, her brothersin-law, and other perfons; decoyed and infnared her faid husband, children, fonin-law, brothers-in-law, and friends, into the confederacy; using for her inftruments, not only the opinion fhe affected to have of the pretended fanctity of the aforenamed Gabriel Malagrida; but alfo the letters he frequently wrote to her, to perfuade all her relations to go and join in fpiritual exercises with him the faid Malagrida. *[Francisco de Affiz and Tavora, (this family being above taking the title of Don), Marquis of Tavora, and Earl of Saint John and of Alvor, General of Horfe, &c. This nobleman was himfelf the eldest branch of the Alvor family, the third noble house of the Tavoras; and by mare rying his kinfwoman, the heiress of the marquifate, became, in her right, Earl of Saint John and Marquis of Tavora. The family of Tavoras is the most illuftrious of the kingdom, as well for the purity as antiquity of their defcent; deriving their origin from the Kings of Leon, and having ever preferved their dignity, by difdaining to make any other than the most noble ailiances; infomuch that it has of late been the prac tice of the chief branches of this family to mar ry only with one another. They were themfelves the conquerors from the Moors, of the lands they poffefs, and on which there is a town, a river, and an ancient cafile of their name; and they e ven pretend to be Lords of Tavora by the grace, of God. The Marquis was in the 56th year of his age, of the highest middle ftature; a genteel perfon, comely countenance, and grave deportment.] D Whe |