RAYNAL, William Thomas, better known as the

Abbé Raynal 1 was born about the year 1712, and having received his education amongst the celebrated order of the Jesuits, became one of their number. Their value and excellence chiefly consisted in assigning to each member his j>roper employment. Amongst them Raynal acquired a taste for literature and science; and by them he was afterwards expelled, no doubt on account of his impiety. Soon after this event he justified his expulsion by associating with Voltaire, D’Alembert, and Diderot, who employed him to furnish the articles on theology for the Encyefa-. pedie; but having no relish, and probably as little qualification, for such work, he devolved it on the Abbe Yvon, whom Barruel allows to have been an inoffensive and upright man.

The first work of Raynal, which is justly regarded as an eminent performance, is his Political and Philosophical History of the European Settlements in the East and West Indies. The style of this work is rambling but animated; it contains many just reflections both of a political and philosophical nature, intermixed, however, with much vague and declamatory speculation. It has been translated into every European language. This performance, we believe, was followed by a small tract in the year 1780, entitled the Revolution of America, in which he pleaded the cause of the colonists with much zeal, censured the conduct of the British government, and discovered some acquaintance with the principles of the different factions; circumstances which induced a belief that he had been furnished with materials by those who knew the merits of the dispute much better than any foreigner could reasonably be supposed to do.

The French government instituted a prosecution against him on account of his history of the East and West Indies; but with so little severity was it conducted, that sufficient time was allowed him to retire to the dominions of his Prussian majesty, by whom he was protected, ,'notwithstanding he had treated the character of that sovereign with very little ceremony. Even the most despotic princes showed him much kindness, although he always animadverted without reserve on their conduct; and he even lived in the good graces of the Empress of Russia. At one period the British House of Commons showed him a very singular mark of respect. The speaker having been informed that Raynal was a spectator in the gallery, public business was instantly suspended, and the stranger was conducted to a more honourable situation. But when a friend of Dr Johnson’s asked him respecting the same personage, “Will you give me leave, doctor, to introduce to you the Abbé Ray-nal ?” he turned on his heel, and said, “No, sir.”

A love of liberty was the principal trait in RaynaPs character, of which he gave no proper or accurate definition in his earlier writings; but when he beheld the abuse of liberty in the progress of the French Revolution, he nobly attempted to retrieve his errors. In the month of May 1791, he addressed to the Constituent Assembly an eloquent, argumentative, and impressive letter, in which he proved that it was not the business of the assembly to abolish every ancient institution; that the genius of the French people is such, that they never can be happy or prosperous except under a well-regulated monarchical government; and that, if they wished not the nation to fall under the worst kind of despotism, they would increase the power of the king.

Besides the works already mentioned, he was the author of a History of the Parliament of England; a History of the Stadtholderate; the History of the Divorce of Catharine of Aragon by Henry VIII.; and a History of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in four volumes. He was deprived of all his property during the Revolution, and died in poverty in the month of March 1796, in the eighty-fourth year of his age.

Ray, in Optics, a beam of light emitted from a radiant or luminous body. See Optics.