Note 685 — Chapter IV

Ibid. In this connection Morse seeks to extract comfort from the fact that the editors of the British Critic, having compared Robison’s Proofs and Barruel’s Memoirs of Jacobinism, have recorded their verdict that the two works are highly confirmatory of each other, “barring certain unimportant particulars.” He likewise observes that the marks of precipitation and certain faults of style and expression which some of the impartial English reviewers have been able to point out, have yet not been allowed to alter their judgment that the book as a whole is a credit to its author, and contains much valuable information. The clamor that has arisen against the book, Morse insists, is to be traced to the hostility of men who have been incensed because their secrets have been exposed. At this point it may be said in passing that Morse allowed himself to be drawn into the expression of a sentiment, gratuitous in its nature, which served to precipitate the very thing he had been anxious to avoid, viz., a break with the Masons. Irritated by his critics, he wrote: “The Free Masons can not be angry with him [Robison]…. If therefore any are really angry here, it must be because he has touched and exposed their secret friends.”