national happiness in every instance, had not his judgment been perverted by prejudice and misled by evil councils, was evinced in many particulars of his public and private conduct. Among these was a regulation now made respecting the high roads: by which not only the burthens with which the yeomanry had been oppressed were alleviated, but this order of men, in whose labours the public were so deeply interested, were relieved from the tyranny of the officers appointed to execute the laws, who had notoriously abused the authority with which the state had invested them.—When we reflect on the principle and tendency of these measures, we can scarcely suppose it possible that the kingdom was, at this instant, on the eve of a revolution which would terminate in the death of this humane monarch.— To account for the misfortunes of his reign, so far as he was instrumental to them, and reconcile his political conduct with his general character, it will be sufficient to consider, that his personal feelings ever disposed him to do right. But when he was driven from the smooth path of peaceful government, to which his talents were adapted, and involved in difficulties, the prejudices of education, strengthened by the opinions of those about him, prevented him from accommodating his policy to the spirit of the times and existing circumstances, and induced him to adopt measures which do not appear to have been the result of his natural inclination.

When the prejudices of the French nation, which had formerly been in favour of the court, had taken a contrary course, and other causes had predisposed them to become the instruments of those factious leaders who were prepared to avail themselves of every favourable incident to excite a disposition to revolt, a domestic affair, respecting the purchase of a necklace by madame de la Motte, who was said, though without sufficient grounds, to have been employed by the queen, was made one of the means of exasperating their minds.-This mysterious transaction has never been satisfactorily cleared up.-It will be related in the ecclesiastical history so far as it affects the interests of the see of Rome.-But the want of proper authority will, it is presumed, be deemed a sufficient reason for not attempting to give it, in detail, in this place.

1786

Gifford. 4. 128.

SPAIN.

1786

SPAIN.

INSTEAD of devoting their attention and applying their revenue to internal improvements, the Spanish monarchs had been, for ages, endeavouring to extend their dominions in America; which brought no wealth to the state or nation but what produced indolence, luxury, and, eventually, individual and national poverty.-The ill consequences of this policy, and the incumbrance of colonies in those distant regions, were exemplified at this time.— The colonists as well as natives, oppressed by the governors and agents sent among them, who hastened to enrich themselves by rapacity, conceived an aversion to the government under whose authority they acted. Oppression excited mutiny: and the success which had attended the North Americans in throwing off the sovereignty of Great Britain encouraged them to revolt. The Spanish government, however, anticipated their designs, and prevented the success of them by strengthening their fortresses, reinforcing their garrisons, and appointing men of ability, and of conciliating dispositions, as governors.a

1786

ECCLESIASTICAL STATE.

Nor content with disappointing the pontiff in his attempt to resume the exercise of an authority in Germany which might have proved troublesome to him, the emperor proceeded to other measures for the accomplishment of his general plan, of making all power in his own states and those wherein he had an influence, subservient to his own. With that view he excluded the prelates who had made an essential part of the states of Austria, and substituted commendatory abbés, chosen by himself.-He, at the same time, prosecuted his work of abolishing those religious orders in his dominions which he thought most inconsistent with the public good; and diminished

the

a

Annual Register. 37.

the number of monasteries belonging to those which were suffered to remain. And having caused their effects to be sold, he placed the sums arising from the sale of them in a fund called the bank of religion; to be applied to the payments of pensions to monastics who had been members of the houses which had been dissolved, to the support of several bishops and vicars newly instituted by him, and to the maintenance of schools and pious foundations.-Iis imperial majesty, moreover, of his own authority, forbade all pluralities in his dominions. And when the pope refused to sanction his nomination of Charles de Herberstein to the see of Laybach in Carniola, because he dared to assert "that every person is at liberty to "choose the religion which he likes best," he supported his nomination against the papal power, till the death of the bishop put an end to the dispute.

Amidst the disputes in which Pius had been involved with the catholic powers, and the indignities he had suffered from them, a good understanding had subsisted between the courts of Rome and Versailles, till an affair of a mysterious nature respecting the purchase of a necklace by the countess de la Motte, said by her to have been ordered by the queen, in which the cardinal de Rohan was implicated, brought on a warm altercation between his holiness and the French government, respecting the power of the latter to take cognizance of an offence committed by a dignified ecclesiastic. On information that the cardinal had submitted his cause to the parliament of Paris, and that it was proceeding to his trial, the court of Rome felt extreme indignation at such a violation of the rights of the sacred college. And even the mild, the liberal, the philosophic Bernis, who continued in the station of French minister at Rome, espoused the cardinal's cause with generous zeal.-Pius addressed letters to Lewis the Sixteenth and the cardinal; representing, in the former, that, pursuant to the concordatum with France, cardinals and bishops were to be tried at Rome; and charging the cardinal, in the latter, with a violation of his oath in acknowledging as his judges the parliament of Paris.-These letters, however, made no impression on the French government: "Tell the pope," said the ministry in, their letter to Bernis, " that our kings have never "allowed their hands to be tied up, in that respect, when the affairs are

1786

Life of Pius. *.

326.

b

Idem. 2. 182.

"connected.

1786

"connected with state causes."-Pius then held a consistory; in which he announced the cardinal's suspension from his dignities, till he should appear, and exculpate himself from the charge of having submitted the trial of his cause to an incompetent tribunal.-The cardinal de Rohan's conduct in this affair could never be cleared from the reproach of having suffered himself to be made a tool in an infamous transaction. But being acquitted of the charge laid against him, his holiness, in another consistory, reinstated him in his cardinalitian dignity.d

1786

GERMANY.

THE emperor, still actuated by that ill-directed ambition which, leaving the path of true glory, an emulation of virtuous and beneficent actions, thirsts for extent of territory, prepared, at this time, to join the empress of Russia in prosecuting her views of conquest on the Turkish empire. In their negotiations with the Porte respecting the demarcation of limits they studiously avoided precision, and made their requisitions in such vague terms as might leave a door open to future demands, whenever the circumstances of the neighbouring powers might render the execution of their plan of usurpation more practicable than it was at present. For as France had interfered with his designs in the low countries from a conviction of the good policy of supporting the Dutch provinces in their present station among the European powers, and of maintaining a friendly correspondence with them, so it was feared that the same crown would oppose any scheme for aggrandizing Russia and Austria at the expence of the Porte; a state the existence of which was so necessary to balance the confederacy now formed by the two imperial courts. For these reasons, France was particularly concerned to oppose their encroachments, on account of her situation, and her interest in the Mediterranean trade: and it was imagined that she would be joined by Great Britain, Prussia, Sweden, and other states which felt themselves interested in preventing that preponderancy of the confederate powers which would take place in case of their meditated conquests on the

C Life of Pius. 2. 187.

a

d Idem. 201.

Annual Register. 155.

the European Turkish dominions.-The immediate political views of the courts of Vienna and Petersburg were in harmony with each other; and they went hand in hand in every measure respecting the Porte. To an attentive observer, however, the emperor appeared to act a subordinate part to Catharine; and in the event he will be seen to be the dupe of her policy.

During these foreign transactions the emperor proceeded with unabated ardour in his civil and ecclesiastical regulations.-In imitation of the Prussian monarch and the empress of Russia, whom he appeared ever to emulate, he ordered an entire new code of laws to be digested, to accompany the new system for judicial proceedings which he was introducing in his hereditary states. But when his plan was carried into execution, the difficulty of reconciling facility and dispatch with justice and equity was evinced in the opportunities which it afforded for an abuse of power in the administrators of the laws in the several departments.--It will not, perhaps, be thought an improper digression, if we here felicitate ourselves on the enjoyment of that glorious system of laws and judicial proceedings which is established in Great Britain; which is founded on liberty and improved by the successive labours of the wisest statesmen; and which, after all the efforts of modern legislators, still holds its station of unrivalled excellence.

The emperor at the same time pursued his design of secularizing monastic fraternities and applying their revenues and property to public uses. And. such had already been his progress, that it appeared from an authenticated list that 624 of these had been suppressed since the year 1782.-Moreover, he embraced the opportunity presented by an injudicious attempt of the pope to institute a court of nunciature at Munich, in the late year, to issue an ordinance depriving the nuncios of every kind of jurisdiction in Germany.

C

Among the ordinances which relate to religion and morality was that commanding all rectors and parish priests to make use of the German instead of the Latin language in the administration of the sacrament; and that which prohibited all games of chance under the severest penalties. This last was so strictly enforced, we are informed, that eleven officers who offended. against

Ann. Regist. 156.

с

Life of Pius the Sixth, 1. 316. 32. and Ann. Regist. 157.

1786