POMBAL DE CARVALHO E MELLO, Sebastião José, Marquess of. - 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 he was ambassador to Vienna.
Minister of War and Foreign Affairs in 1750, he left these departments shortly afterwards to take over that of the Interior, and became in fact prime minister. Joseph I conferred on him the title of count, then of marquis. Pombal wished to revive the depressed economy of Portugal with reforms inspired by the English example and by physiocratic doctrines; he did or attempted much to improve agriculture and to promote commerce and industries, but these measures did not have lasting effect, because Pombal did not know how to proportion them to the capacities of the country, and because he wished to impose them by dictatorial methods, without any respect for the rights and liberties of others. After the activity he carried out to repair the damage of the disastrous Lisbon earthquake had secured for him the unlimited trust of the King, Pombal aimed to establish a regime of total absolutism. But he had to overcome two obstacles in order to carry out his designs: 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, Pombal waged a merciless war against them, without troubling himself with scruples in the choice of means. Exploiting the accusations widespread in Europe against the so-called State of the Jesuits in Paraguay, he began the struggle in 1755 with numerous individual expulsions. He attributed to the intrigues of the Fathers the revolt of the vine-growers of Oporto, in which they had no part. In 1757 he removed the confessors of the royal family and forbade the Jesuits access to court. And meanwhile he formulated against them accusations of every kind, which at first impressed even the apostolic nuncio, but without ever producing proofs in support of such accusations. Benedict XIV, who wished to avoid a rupture with the King, appointed Cardinal Saldanha reformer and visitor of the Portuguese Jesuits. But this choice, instead of facilitating an agreement, favored Pombal's game, because Saldanha was his relative and owed to him his elevation and the conspicuous benefits obtained by his kinsmen. Thus, during the vacant See caused by the death of the Pope, Pombal was able to act freely, with the presumed tacit approval of the supreme ecclesiastical authority; among other things an ordinance was issued that forbade all Jesuits to preach and to hear confessions. Pombal's maneuvers were facilitated by the fact that the new general of the Order, Lorenzo Ricci, was a man of high spiritual gifts, but lacking the energy and the ability necessary to face such an adversary. And the new Pope too, Clement XIII, in fear of a schism, hoped to settle the dispute by negotiations and limited himself to recommending to the Jesuits silence, patience and prayer. But his attempts at pacification were rendered vain by Pombal's cunning, who in 1758, exploiting an attempt on the King's life, had some members of the highest nobility executed and pointed to the Jesuits as the instigators of the crime. Of this accusation too he gave no proofs, and Saldanha never sent the report requested of him on the matter by Rome. There followed the seizure of the Society's property and, on 5 Oct. 1759, the expulsion of all its members. That these measures were not provoked by real or presumed crimes of the Jesuits (in which case, moreover, the guilty should have been punished without involving the innocent too in the penalty), but instead aimed at clearing the ground for a broader action against the Roman Church, was shown by subsequent events. Not only were other ecclesiastical communities persecuted, but, precisely while the Pope was giving proof of an even excessive complaisance, Pombal decreed the expulsion of the nuncio Acciaioli and then of all papal subjects, the prohibition of communicating with the Curia and of importing goods from the Papal State. He thus revealed his ultimate aim of making the Portuguese Church as independent as possible of the Roman hierarchies. And for a decade diplomatic relations between the Papal State and Portugal remained interrupted. Pombal's fortunes fell with the death of King Joseph. The minister's enemies took their revenge by forcing him to resign and having him brought to trial. Exiled to Pombal, he died shortly afterwards. In the apology he wrote in his last days he defended himself against the accusation of embezzlement and of irreligion, declaring that he had always been sincerely Catholic.