Storia do Mogor 364.3

364.3

that we always put the worst construction upon his best-meant acts. But, gentlemen, his Lordship, while confessing he has been misled, denies (can we credit it ?) that this happened owing to the calumny uttered against us by the reverend Jesuit fathers. If they were not its inventors, how, possibly, could his Lordship have been able to assert a thing which never happened? And why has he written to your Council a letter the most outrageous, the most pungent, that could ever have been written? Still farther, gentlemen, the Lord Bishop writes to you asking you to treat us with all possible severity; he accuses the Reverend Father Esprit of having thrown one of his letters on the ground, refusing to take it. This being untrue, as you will have already seen, he tells you besides that he does not wish to expose himself to the rage and rudeness of the said Reverend Father. When we ask his Lordship to testify to the truth, while on one hand he acquits us, on the other he endeavours to make us out greater culprits than he had ever done before. While you are considering this we pray you to tell us, please, the way in which you would have interpreted this precious letter, which is in your possession, had his Lordship written it as an accusation against you, instead, as he did, writing it against the poor Capuchins.