Squilaci, the minister of finance, whom Charles had brought with him from Naples, had attempted, in his eagerness for reformation, to change the national dress. An edict was accordingly issued, prohibiting the use of flapped hats and long cloaks, which were supposed to favour assassination, a practice then very common in Spain. He had also established a mo nopoly for supplying Madrid with oil, bread and other articles of general consumption, which was im mediately followed by a rise of price in these com modities. These measures roused the indignation of the populace, and excited an insurrection in the cap ital so sudden, violent, and powerful, that all attempts to restore tranquillity were unavailing, until Charles himself appeared in the balcony of the palace, and promised to dismiss the Neapolitan minister, to repeal the obnoxious edict, to suppress the monopoly for supplying the city with provisions, and to pardon the insurgents. The equable temper of the king was so ruffled by this tumult that he left the capital, and es tablished his court at Aranjuez, where he resided for eight months.
As similar insurrections had occurred in different parts of the kingdom, Charles began to suspect that they arose from something else than a mere .popular ferment; and upon a strict investigation into the cir cumstances of these disturbances, his suspicions fell upon the Jesuits. The spirit of intrigue and perse
vering ambition of this celebrated order had obtained for them great influence and power in every Catholic country. As the instructers of its youth, the confes sors of its princes, and the spiritual guides of the no bility, they gained such an ascendency over the minds of men that they mingled in all affairs; and there was scarcely a public intrigue or revolution in which they were not actually implicated, or supposed to be engag ed. Devotedly attached to the court of Rome, they endeavoured to exalt her dominion over all civil go vernment, and acknowledged no authority that was any way opposed to the maxims of the order or the will of their general. They were thus dangerous as subjects, and by their number and wealth were for midable as enemies; and though they had become objects of fear and jealousy to many of the European governments, yet, until the middle of the sixteenth century, no monarch had been bold enough to set them at defiance. Portugal was the first who set the exam ple, from whence they were expelled in 1759; France followed in 1764; and Spain in 1767; and the manner of their expulsion from this latter kingdom and its colonies, was as complete as it was unexpected. See