John Adams and the Jesuits

In 1814, the Society of Jesus was restored after being suppressed for 41 years. Not everyone welcomed them back, as this letter of John Adams to Thomas Jefferson attests:

I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits…. Shall we not have regular swarms of them here, in as many disguises as only a king of the gipsies can assume, dressed as printers, publishers, writers and schoolmasters? If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation on earth and in Hell, it is this society of Loyola’s. Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.

John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 5, 1816