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with her, according to the description she gives of herself ;—maigre, sèche, et désagréable. Yet her head was full of the passions she kindled, and the gallantries she inspired.

For the particulars I have assembled relative to the States of Barbary, I am obliged to a variety of publications. Mr. Lemprière's late Travels to Morocco are judicious and well written. Commodore Stewart and Captain Braithwaite visited this Empire not long before the period of my history. I have consulted the narratives of their journeys both for men and manners. The latter may be supposed to have undergone some change from lapse of time. We are well informed of the state of Morocco; but our accounts of Algiers are meagre indeed. indeed. What I have said concerning it, I gleaned with much pains from a number of books. But Mr. Falcon, lately British consul there, was so good as to revise my statement, and add to my information. Tempted by the novelty and curiosity of the subject, I had entered into a good deal of detail: but an intimate and most enlightened friend, whose absence at this time, in a distant part of the globe, I have to lament, suggesting to me the slender connection it had with

my subject, I pressed the matter I had collected into the general view now published.

I take no notice of a book entitled, "Testament politique du Cardinal Alberoni." It is very common, but no doubt a fabrication, and a poor one.* I should have wished to have seen a Life published at Placentia soon after his death; but I could not meet with it.

I may be blamed for referring, in a history of past times, to recent events and the present circumstances of my country. But what is a history of past times, except in the light of these gigantic and tremendous events? a mere fairy tale! They have changed the whole aspect of human affairs. They press hourly on our feelings, on our dearest interests! My pen was conducted to them by an involuntary impulse. If this shall not be deemed an excuse, let it be regarded only as the exposition of a fact.

It is the work of a hungry French writer, of the name of Maubert, who was afterwards employed in writing the Brussels Gazette, which gave such offence to all true-born Englishmen, and is mentioned in several of our patriotic songs.

To this new Edition of the Lives of Cardinal Alberoni and the Duke de Ripperda, I have added the Life of the Marquis of Pombal, the celebrated Portuguese minister, and have comprehended all three under a general title, on which I shall say a few words before I conclude these prefatory remarks.

names.

The name of Pombal has already felt the effects of the progress of time. It has given way to other More recent actors on the great stage of the world occupy the public attention. There are persons, however, still living, who remember the lively interest which he once created, the various passions which he once excited. Confined, by the rank which his country held in the scale of nations, to a circumscribed sphere of action, he notwithstanding connected himself with events of great and universal importance.

The order of the Jesuits must still be remembered with passions of different kinds by different classes of readers. The very name was long an object of abhorrence to the generality of persons in this country and in all parts of Protestant Europe.

By them Pombal, as one of the first movers in the destruction of this monastic fraternity, will be regarded as a benefactor to mankind, and the name of adventurer may be thought invidiously and im properly applied to him.

Adventurer, in the sense in which I use it, is not intended to convey any kind of reproach, not even to denote a meanness of origin. Ripperda and Pombal were both gentlemen by birth and education; and, though their elevation may have exceeded their early expectations, cannot be surveyed with any emotions of wonder. The application, however, of the name to the former, will, I imagine, be hardly disputed; and whoever attentively considers the character of public life, and the kind of atchievements which distinguish the latter, will think it not unaptly bestowed upon him. He had all that restless activity, that love of changes and reforms, that eagerness for measures which strike

the multitude, which I suppose particularly to belong to that race of men whom I call adventurers.

It is in this sense of the word that I apprehend Montesquieu has said, in a posthumous work, sont toujours les aventuriers qui font de grandes choses, et non pas les souverains des grands empires," without any reference to the greater or less good resulting from these "grandes choses."

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There are many in Catholic countries, and perhaps some even in England, who contemplate the order of the Jesuits with sentiments different from what I have adverted to. They have been led to think their destruction as a great rent in the religious texture of European society, as the first step in a mighty and disastrous scheme of subversion, which has unsettled the harmony and

*

repose

of nations. These may except to the name adventurer, as not grave and emphatic enough for the author: of so great a mischief. To them likewise is my explanation addressed, and I hope it will satisfy them.

Whatever may be the thought of the Jesuits, their principal enemy, and first impelling cause of their destruction, cannot, even at this day, be regarded with indifference.

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