POMBAL de CARVALHO e MELLO, SEBASTIÁN JOSÉ, marquis. — Born in Lisbon on 15 May 1699, died at Pombal on 8 May 1782. In 1739 he was sent to London as chargé d’affaires; in 1745, ambassador to Vienna.
Minister of War and Foreign Affairs in 1750, he soon relinquished these portfolios to assume that of the Interior, and in fact became prime minister. Giuseppe I conferred upon him the title of count, and later that of marquis. P. sought to revive Portugal’s depressed economy through reforms inspired by the English example and by physiocratic doctrines; he did much, or attempted much, to improve agriculture and promote trade and industry, but these measures had no lasting effect, because P. did not know how to adapt them to the country’s capacities, and because he sought to impose them by dictatorial methods, without any regard for the rights and liberties of others. After the activity he undertook to repair the damage caused by the disastrous Lisbon earthquake had secured him the King’s unlimited confidence, P. aimed to establish a regime of total absolutism. But he had to overcome two obstacles in order to achieve his purposes: the power of the high aristocracy and the religious and intellectual preponderance of the Society of Jesus. Although until then he had professed himself a friend of the Jesuits, to whom he owed his rapid rise, P. waged a ruthless war against them, without scruple in his choice of means. Exploiting the accusations circulating throughout Europe against the so-called Jesuit State in Paraguay, he began the struggle in 1755 with numerous individual expulsions. He attributed the revolt of the Oporto winegrowers, in which they had no part whatsoever, to intrigues by the Fathers. In 1757 he removed the confessors of the royal family and prohibited the Jesuits from access to the court. Meanwhile, he formulated all manner of accusations against them, which at first impressed even the apostolic nuncio, but never produced any evidence in support of them. Benedict XIV, who wished to avoid a rupture with the King, appointed Cardinal Saldanha reformer and visitor of the Portuguese Jesuits. But this choice, rather than facilitating an agreement, played into P.’s hands, because Saldanha was his relative and owed him his elevation, as well as substantial benefits obtained for his kinsmen. Thus, during the vacancy of the Holy See following the Pope’s death, P. was able to act freely, with the presumed tacit approval of the highest ecclesiastical authority; among other measures, an ordinance was issued prohibiting all Jesuits from preaching and hearing confessions. P.’s maneuvers were facilitated by the fact that the new superior general of the Order, Lorenzo Ricci, was a man of great spiritual gifts, but lacked the energy and ability necessary to confront such an adversary. And the new Pope, Clement XIII, too, fearing a schism, hoped to settle the dispute through negotiations and limited himself to recommending silence, patience, and prayer to the Jesuits. But his attempts at pacification were thwarted by P.’s cunning: in 1758, exploiting an attempt on the King’s life, he had several members of the highest nobility executed and pointed to the Jesuits as the instigators of the crime. Nor did he provide evidence for this accusation, and Saldanha never sent the report requested from him on the matter by Rome. The seizure of the Society’s property followed, and on 5 October 1759 all its members were expelled. That these measures were not provoked by real or alleged Jesuit offenses (in which case, moreover, the guilty should have been punished without involving the innocent in the penalty as well), but were instead intended to clear the ground for broader action against the Roman Church, was demonstrated by subsequent events. Not only were other ecclesiastical communities persecuted, but, precisely while the Pope was displaying even excessive compliance, P. decreed the expulsion of the nuncio Acciaioli and then of all papal subjects, and prohibited communication with the Curia and the importation of goods from the Papal States. He thus revealed his ultimate aim: to make the Portuguese Church as independent as possible from the Roman hierarchies. For a decade, diplomatic relations between the Papal States and Portugal remained severed. P.’s fortunes declined with the death of King Giuseppe. The minister’s enemies took their revenge by forcing him to resign and having him prosecuted. Exiled to Pombal, he died shortly afterward. In the apologia he wrote during his final days, he defended himself against accusations of embezzlement and irreligion, declaring that he had always been sincerely Catholic.
Roberto Palmarocchi
