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 . M EXAMINATION 
 
 
 (,-•■ 
 
 THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 BY THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, 
 
 M.V. FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 Clarence, Relont, ami save j-oiir souls. 
 
 1 Murderer. Kelont ! 'tis cowardly, and womanisli. 
 
 Clarence. Not to relent, is beastly, savage, dcvilisli. 
 
 Ricii.VRD III., Act i., Scene 'i. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MUERAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1852.
 
 LONDON; PUl.VTED UV W. GLOMES AND SONS, STAllFOKD STUEET.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introductory Notices -------5 
 
 I. — Statements iu the Letters to be quiilified or retracted - - 10 
 
 II. — Statements controverted by the Neapolitan Defence without 
 
 being shaken - - - - - - -15 
 
 III. — Statements to which a show of denial is made without the 
 
 reality --------21 
 
 Question of the numbers ------- 24 
 
 lY. — Statements denied by voluntary advocates of the Neapolitan 
 
 Government, but not controverted by the official defender 30 
 
 The Catechism --------33 
 
 The Clergy - - - - - - - --34 
 
 Concluding Notices _______ 34 
 
 K 2
 
 u,uc
 
 AN EXAMINATION, 
 
 8)C. ^c. 
 
 When I addressed the Earl of Aberdeen in the month of July, 
 with respect to the State Prosecutions of the Neapolitan Govern- 
 ment, I did not expect to return to the subject. But neither did 
 I then expect to be encountered in the field by a responsible 
 antagonist. The appearance of the Neapolitan Government 
 itself,* under the form of a publication carrying its authority, 
 upon the arena, has altered my position. I have now thought it 
 my duty to that Government, as well as to the public, to place its 
 reply point by point in the scales along with my accusation, and 
 strictly take account of the result. 
 
 And my first duty is an agreeable one : it is the duty of con- 
 fessing that, whatever may have been the prudence of the de- 
 cision to appear and plead in the cause, the course taken has at 
 least been a manly and an open one : this openness, this manli- 
 ness, lead to and justify the hope that that Government will not 
 shrink from the logical, legitimate, and obvious consequences of 
 the step it has thought fit so deliberately to adopt. 
 
 It may, indeed, seem strange that this reply, if published in 
 Naples, where the accusation, of course, is not permitted to appear, 
 and rendered by authority into French, for publication in a 
 most respectable Parisian journal, should not, so far as I am 
 able to learn, have been published at all in England, where the 
 charge was originally advanced, and has attracted general attention 
 among all classes. I can only ascribe it to the fact, that in this 
 country there is but one opinion, so to speak, through all orders 
 
 * Rassegna degli Errori e delle Fallacie publicate dal Sig. Gladstone, in due 
 sue Lettere indiritte al Conte Aberdeen. Napoli, Stamperia del Fibreno. 1851. 
 A French version, announced as by authority, appears in the ' Journal des D<5bats, 
 of the 27tb, 28th, and 30th September.
 
 6 AN EXA]\IINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 of the community upon the melancholy subject. I suppose it was 
 felt that, eagerly as a confutation ought to have been hailed, a 
 reply which is not only no confutation of my statements at all, but 
 not even an attempt at one, would have been a waste of words in 
 one of those countries, where it is a fixed and traditional practice 
 to canvass with the utmost freedom all the acts of those in public 
 authority, and where this liberty and habit of unrestrained discus- 
 fiion are prized as one of the very chiefest and most necessary 
 bulwarks, alike to loyalty, to order, and to freedom. 
 
 I have termed the production before me a reply which is no 
 confutation, nor even an attempt at one ; and I must freely con- 
 fess that my first quarrel is with its title. It is called ' A Review 
 of the Errors and Misrepresentations published,' and so forth ; 
 but, if the object of a title be to give a correct description, it 
 ought to have been denominated 'A Tacit Admission of the 
 Accuracy of Nine-tenth Parts of the Statements contained in 
 Two Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen.' For those who do not 
 enter into the case, it sounds very well when they are told that 
 the errors and misrepresentations, or, as they have in some quar- 
 ters been called, falsehoods and calumnies, of my letters have been 
 answered ; but I now assert, without fear even of challenge, that 
 nine-tenths of my most startling assertions are passed by in total 
 silence in the apology of the Neapolitan Government. And I 
 suppose it is no extravagant assumption if I treat that silence, 
 in an answer that made its appearance three or four months after 
 the parties were made acquainted with the charge, as simply equi- 
 valent to an admission of the facts. 
 
 Before I enter on particulars, let me observe upon that which 
 next after the title meets the eye in the pamphlet before me, its 
 very significant and well-chosen motto ; errare, nescire, decipi^ 
 et malum et turpe ducimus. I at once recognise both the general 
 truth and the particular application. Notwithstanding the courteous 
 and forbearing tone of the pamphlet, its writer (whether he be a 
 single or a composite perstm I shall not stop to inquire) felt that 
 he could not do justice to his case — if at least he imagines it to be 
 a confutation of mine— without intimating that to be ill informed, 
 to blunder, to be duped, was nothing less than criminal and base 
 on the part of one who undertook to impeach, on grounds so high, 
 and in language so unmeasured, the proceedings of a Government.
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 7 
 
 I am certain the writer cannot feel this more strongly than I do. 
 I re-echo the proposition. I subscribe to the doctrine as cordially 
 as I profoundly differ from some doctrines which he has broached. 
 Launched on the twentieth year of public life, with my lot cast 
 in a stirring country and a stirring time, I cannot plead the cha- 
 racter of a novice in excuse or palliation of temerity. Neither 
 can I throw the smallest fraction of my responsibility for the 
 measure of publication, at the time, and under the circumstances, 
 when it took place, on any other person : the appeal to the 
 world which I made in July last, although it came in connection 
 with the name of the Earl of Aberdeen, was my own act, and my 
 own act alone. I very well knew that on tlie general truth of 
 my charges I was staking my own character, which, though little 
 in itself, is much to me. I am the first, not to admit only, but to 
 urge, that to have gathered such charges upon hearsay, to have 
 made them my own with levity and haste, to have swerved one 
 inch from strict impartiality through the hope of popular sym- 
 pathy and applause, to have aimed blows at the cause of order 
 and stability by exaggerating defects incidental to all govern- 
 ments, or to have claimed or exercised, upon any general grounds, 
 the functions of a cosmopolite for the rectification of the affairs of 
 a foreign country, and by such means to have bid for the favour 
 of persons to whose political opinions I demur — this would, indeed, 
 have been in me conduct criminal and base ; so criminal and so 
 base, that it would have deserved reprobation only one degree 
 less in intensity than that which I invoked upon the deeds, which 
 it was my purpose to brand v.ith infamy and shame. 
 
 But, indeed, all these charges of levity, of ignorance, of herding 
 with republicans and malefactors, and the rest, are not worth 
 discussing ; for the whole matter comes to one single issue — Are 
 the allegations true, or are they false ? If they are false, I shall 
 not be the man to quarrel with any severity of reproach that may 
 be directed against me ; but if they are true, then 1 am quite sure 
 the Neapolitan Government will take no benefit by insinuating 
 doubts whether sentiments like mine, even if well founded, ought 
 to be made known,* or by taking any trivial and irrelevant objec- 
 tion to my personal conduct or qualifications. 
 
 * Rassegna, p. 5.
 
 8 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 One word, however, I must expend on a personal matter, be- 
 cause it is also a matter of courtesy and feeling. It is urged that, 
 whereas I should have been received at Naples with kindness, not 
 only by the Ministers, but by the King himself, and listened to 
 with attention ; yet, instead of profiting by such opportunities, I 
 was careful (I am now quoting the French version) to see none of 
 the Ministers, and no considerable person, and did not even mani- 
 fest the usual wish to be presented to the Sovereign. 
 
 It is an entire error to suppose that I avoided the Ministers, or 
 sought in preference the society of persons of any other political 
 party. Through the kindness of Prince Castelcicala, then Nea- 
 politan Minister in London, I was provided wath a letter to the 
 Head of the Administration, and this letter I delivered in the 
 usual manner on the very day after I reached Naples. I thus 
 took the only step in my power to turn it to account. I likewise 
 requested the British Minister, Sir W. Temple, to be kind 
 enough to secure for me the opportunity of paying my humble 
 respects to the Sovereign on the earliest occasion. But it so hap- 
 pened, that there was no occasion of the kind until many weeks 
 after my arrival at Naples. During this interval I had become 
 gradually aware, in a considerable degree, of the state of things 
 which I have endeavoured to describe ; and although I then had 
 taken no positive resolution on the subject, yet I felt a deep 
 anxiety that in some manner the political party, with whose foreign 
 policy I had been associated, should be effectually disconnected 
 from sucii proceedings. I must confess that arrests, which I saw 
 going on around me, and with the particulars of which I was 
 more or less acquainted, had shocked me to the very last degree ; 
 and I now look back on them with the same unmitigated horror. 
 I was, in short, convinced of thus much, — first, that I could not 
 with perfect ingenuousness appear in the circle of the Court, and 
 remain silent upon these matters ; secondly, that the malady was 
 deep, and must be dealt with by influences — friendly, indeed, and 
 considerate — but of a weight and authority far different from any 
 that I could bring to bear by my merely personal representations. 
 For these reasons, when the time for holding a reception was 
 about to arrive, I begged leave of Sir W. Temple to withdraw 
 the request I had made to him ; and I trust it will thus appear 
 that, whether I judged correctly or otherwise, I was not prompted
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 9 
 
 by a wanton disrespect for constituted authority or for tlie Royal 
 Person. I had no such sentiment either towards the person of 
 the King or towards his throne. My fervent desire was, and even 
 yet is, that that throne may be established in truth and righteous- 
 ness ; and my deep conviction of the revolutionary tendency of 
 the proceedings against which I wrote, was with me one very 
 strong reason for attempting their exposure. 
 
 I will now proceed to present the balance-sheet, which the 
 Government of Naples and the public are alike entitled to demand 
 of me. I shall state distinctly, how many and which of the alle- 
 gations contained in my Two Letters to Lord Aberdeen I think 
 it my duty to qualify — what and how many of them are seriously 
 contested. It will readily be believed that the time which has 
 elapsed since my first publication has not been barren of fresh 
 information to me ; but I feel so convinced both of the sufficiency 
 in amount of the statements already before the world, and of the 
 demonstrative confirmation they have now received, that I shall 
 introduce no new heads of charge, and shall be very sparing of 
 new illustrations of charges already made, except in the few cases 
 where they have been questioned. One effective weapon I deli- 
 berately refrain from using — I mean the startling enumeration of 
 my imcontested accusations ; for feeling is already awake, and I 
 do not wish, where I can help it, to cloud the serenity of the public 
 judgment. Only to this proposition I must formally draw 
 attention, and claim assent : what has not been contested, is ad- 
 mitted ; for the apologist distinctly declares, in his Litroduction 
 and elsewhere, that he will deal with the entire case ;* " will re- 
 store those facts which have been exaggerated to their correct 
 proportions ; will point out those that are wholly unfounded ; and 
 will expose those that are calumnious." Again, to all the calumnies 
 which I have spread he will " do exact and ample justice." f 
 
 As I do not intend gratuitously to enlarge the lamentable cata- 
 logue of my facts, so neither shall I needlessly reiterate my vehe- 
 ment and unqualified language. To gibbet infamy such as that 
 of the President Navarro and the Minister Peccheneda, is a task 
 which, like that of the executioner, somebody must perform for the 
 benefit of society ; and I have performed it. But no man should 
 needlessly return to the loathsome details of such a business. In 
 ♦ Rassegna, p. 5. t Ibid., p. S.
 
 10 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL IJEPLY 
 
 these pages, accordingly, I shall not insert a word except such as 
 seems absolutely demanded by the course and aim of my argu- 
 ment. The strong language of my Letters I leave upon record, 
 simply saying that I wish any the least part of it could with pro- 
 priety be either repented, qualified, or withdrawn. 
 
 Passing by, then, the statements which no attempt is made to 
 dispute, I shall advert, firstly, to those which, being contradicted, 
 are also proved to be erroneous, or which, upon the whole, I see 
 reason to withdraw ; secondly, to those which are indeed contra- 
 dicted without my having found any cause to recede from them ; 
 thirdly, to those which are noticed with the apparent intention 
 more or less of leaving an impression that they have been contra- 
 dicted, but without any real contradiction at all. I must likewise 
 notice cursorily a fourth and a singular class ; that, namely, of 
 contradictions which have been volunteered by zealous defenders 
 of the Neapolitan Government, but which, instead of being taken 
 up and adopted by its recognized and official advocate, are passed 
 by in total and very significant silence. 
 
 I. Of the first of these classes I shall rapidly dispose. 
 
 1. I have learned nothing to confirm the statement, which I 
 reported as probably though not certainly true, that Settembrini 
 has been tortured.* 1 therefore think it my duty to withdraw it, 
 although it is not met by the Neapolitan Government with an 
 explicit denial. 
 
 2. I have committed an error in saying he was condemned to 
 double irons for life.f Double irons form no part of the sentence 
 of the ergastolo, which was his commuted sentence. 
 
 3. I have stated that six judges were dismissed at Reggio, 
 upon presuming to acquit a batch of political prisoners.^ This is 
 an error. The statement should have been, that three were dis- 
 missed, and three removed to other posts. This removal is not 
 an uncommon nor an ineffective mode of punishment. 
 
 4. I have stated that seventeen invalids were massacred in the 
 prison of Procida on the occasion of the revolt. I believe this also 
 to be an error. 
 
 5. I have stated that certain prisoners acquitted in the trial of 
 the Unita Italiana were, when I last heard of them, still in prison. 
 This is calculated to convey an impression that they were detained 
 
 * First Letter, p. 18. t Ibid., p. 18. X Ibid., p. 28.
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 11 
 
 for some considerable time after acquittal, which is not correct. 
 Tlie ' Review ' states, and I do not dispute it, that the acquitted 
 prisoners were released after the lapse of only two days. 
 
 Such is the list of retractations I have to make. 
 
 I have been much criticised for constantly using the expressions 
 " I believe," " I have heard," " It was stated to me," and the 
 like, instead of pursuing the simple strain of assertion through- 
 out : and it has been strangely inferred, that I raked together 
 mere hearsay and rumour, and inculpated a Government on the 
 strength of them. 
 
 I did endeavour with laborious care to appreciate, and, by 
 these phrases and otherwise, to give ray readers the means of in 
 some degree appreciating, the evidence, varying in amount, for 
 each one of my allegations. The result now proves, that 1 have 
 been successful beyond my utmost hopes. The words that I used 
 most lightly, upon presumption rather than knowledge, were words 
 of commendation with respect to an individual in high station. 
 
 Not one among the whole list of accusations rested upon hear- 
 say. Every one of them had either demonstrative evidence or 
 reasonable and probable evidence in its favour. It may now bo 
 seen, in these pages, how small and insignificant a fraction of error 
 made its way into the Letters. 
 
 For, having given my retractations above, I must guard the 
 reader against supposing, either that those erroneous allegations 
 impvited to the Neapolitan Government what was worse than 
 many of my unquestioned and admitted statements, and thus 
 heightened the general colouring of the picture, or that, in cor- 
 recting my details, I am prepared to recede from the substance 
 of any one of the charges. 
 
 Though Settembrini has not been tortured, it must not be 
 assumed that torture is an instrument from which, when conve- 
 nient, the police always shrink ; or that my imputation of it is the 
 first they have heard.* The assertion that corporal agony is 
 inflicted, and that without judicial authority, by the Neapolitan 
 police in the prisons, I now make with confidence. Tlie fact that 
 it is utterly illegal unhappily does not afford the very faintest 
 presumption to the contrary. 
 
 * See, for example, the Protestatiou da Peuple des Deux SicileS; translated by 
 Ricciardi, Paris, 1848, p. 31.
 
 12 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 Again, while stating that Settembrini is not in double irons, I 
 do not mean to mitigate the general idea I have given of his cruel 
 and wicked punishment. He is confined, with eight more pri- 
 soners, at San Stefano, in a room sixteen palmi square, which 
 they are never allowed to leave : one of them named Cajazzo, a 
 man condemned for murder forty -nine years ago, who boasts of 
 having at different times murdered thirty- five persons. Several 
 of these exploits he has committed in the prison upon his com- 
 panions ; and I have been assured that the murders in this 
 Ergastolo have exceeded fifty in a single year. What kind of 
 protection, I want to know, is thus afforded to the life of 
 Settembrini ? 
 
 Again, as to the dismissal of judges. I will not weary the 
 reader of these pages with all the details of mean and shameful 
 revenge which have been used to beat down the high spirit of the 
 legal profession in the persons of the judges. But even the last 
 few weeks have afforded a fresh instance. The political trial 
 called that of the Pugnalatori has recently been concluded in 
 Naples. Death was demanded on the part of the Government ; 
 but the sentences passed were principally to banishment. The 
 capital was in amazement at the boldness of the judges : and well 
 it might. Since then two of them have been dismissed ; what is 
 to happen further time will show. But this was not all. The 
 Government have actually appointed a commission of review to 
 correct this lenient sentence ! I add to this, that, on the occa- 
 sion of another recent trial, an oflftcer of the executive power was 
 placed in the very chamber of the judges, when they met together 
 to consult upon their sentence.* 
 
 It has been said I spoke disrespectfully of the Neapolitan 
 judges.f Certainly, I endeavoured to do so of many of them. 
 But those who blame me should recollect that I dare not praise. 
 To be the object of my commendation, insignificant as it is, would 
 be a burden in Naples which few except the very highest could 
 bear. 
 
 I could havi! found there men, and classes of men, worthy to 
 
 * One word in regard to salaries of judges. I mentioned the highest salary 
 paid ; but J may give a better idea of the general scale by stating that there is an 
 hdspital in Naples, where the annual charge divided by the number of patients 
 yields a quotient larger than the salary very coaunoiily paid to a judge. 
 
 t llass., p. 56.
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 13 
 
 be praised with all the fervour of thought and language that the 
 heart of man can prompt ; but stern prudence has restrained me 
 from offering to them the fatal gift. 
 
 And now for the massacre perpetrated at Procida by the 
 gendarmi, and rewarded by the Government. I can perceive the 
 source of the error into which I fell. For though invalids were 
 not slain on that deplorable occasion, yet prisoners who took 
 refuge and hid under beds were dragged forth, and shot in cold 
 blood by the gendarmi after order had been restored. This was 
 on the day of the riot or revolt. On the 26th and on the 28th 
 of June, when it had long been quenched in blood, the work of 
 slaughter was renewed. I believe I rather under than over stated 
 the total loss of life : and two officers — not, as I said, one — 
 received promotion or honours for this abominable enormity. 
 
 I ought to add that I never said the unfortunate victims were 
 political prisoners. But I cannot quit the subject without noticing 
 the surprising fact that the Neapolitan Government actually find 
 fault with me in this case for reviving the discussion of a super- 
 annuated and obsolete occurrence.* The massacre took place in 
 June, 1848 ; and, at the time when the apologist penned this strange 
 criticism, his employers were trying some men, and detaining hun- 
 dreds more untried in prison, on the plea or pretext of acts they 
 had done in May of the same year ! Thus, then, against mercy 
 there is a statute of limitations ; but vengeance must never die. 
 
 And now as to the detention of acquitted persons. Criminal 
 laws and courts are commonly founded on the principle that men 
 are to be treated as innocent until they are found to be guilty, 
 and a fortiori that they are to be treated as innocent when they 
 have been found innocent. But in Naples the principle is, first, 
 that men are to be treated as guilty until they are proved to be 
 innocent ; and, secondly, that they may still be treated as guilty 
 when they have been found not guilty. For a verdict or sentence 
 favourable to the accused can rarely amount to a positive establish- 
 ment of his innocence. The issue raised is not, was he innocent ? 
 but, was he guilty ? From the nature of the case, the failure to 
 prove guilt will rarely involve proof of innocence : and at Naples, 
 the most favourable reply he can hope from the court amounts 
 to this, that no suflnicient proof of guilt has been laid before it ; 
 
 * Rass., p. 5G : lui vieiofatlu, a stale or mouldy fact.
 
 U AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL EEPLY 
 
 a lame, doubtful, floundering acquittal. But such proof may be 
 forthcoming at a subsequent period ; having been tried now is no 
 reason why he should not be tried again, but rather in the nature 
 of a reason why he should. Taken at the best, a favourable 
 judgment only replaces the subject of it in the position in which 
 he stood before, of a person suspected by the police, and deemed 
 by them capable either of political crime, or of knowing, or of 
 being related to, or connected with, some one capable of it. An 
 ample reason, surely, for detaining him in prison, on prudential 
 grounds, and with a view to further investigations. Who could 
 complain of so reasonable a discretion intrusted to the police, 
 especially when it is considered, as the ' Review ' informs us, that 
 the members of that corps enjoy, except as to those in its inferior 
 ranks, a degree of estimation with the public varying according 
 to their merits ! * 
 
 I shall now give a painful proof that this is a true picture of 
 the practices at Naples ; specifying that I might supply others 
 more flagrant still. 
 
 In the month of November last (and I have heard of no change 
 since that date, now two months back) there were in the prison of 
 San Francesco, at Naples, seventeen priests, some of them holding 
 ecclesiastical dignities and professorial chairs. I do not mean that 
 there were no more than seventeen ; but that of seventeen I am 
 about to speak. Five of them had been tried ; twelve were in the 
 hands of the police without having been tried. One or two of 
 these twelve only, I believe, had been even charged. One of the 
 twelve, neither tried nor charged, was a chronic invalid of four- 
 score years old. I have the terms for which nine out of the 
 twelve had been thus detained. Three of them were so short as 
 eight months only ; two had been thus detained for thirty and 
 thirty-one months respectively. 
 
 But I must state the cases of the other five. One of them had 
 been arrested on charges of which he was acquitted, but was serving 
 a sentence of two years under fresh counts laid in virtue of a 
 decree which was passed five months after his arrest. A second 
 had been tried, found guilty, suftered the whole of his sentence, 
 and was still detained in prison by the police. The remaining three 
 had been charged, tried, and acquitted by the Grand Criminal 
 
 * Pase r>8.
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 15 
 
 Court, but after acquittal they had still been kept in prison — the 
 first I know not how long, the second for eight months, and the 
 third for fifteen. This may sound strange, but there is no 
 marvel in Naples without a sister to it. For a certain RafFaelle 
 Valerio was charged in the cause of the Fifth September, though 
 he had alleared in his first examination that he had been arrested 
 two months before that date, and was in prison at the time of the 
 alleged offence. No notice was taken of this statement. When 
 the trial actually came on, but not till then, the allegation was 
 inquired into and found true, and he was acquitted. In the mean 
 time, he had spent thirty-three more months in prison. 
 
 I shall not give all the particulars of the condition of the 
 priests to whom I have referred, but a few only. They are 
 imprisoned, then, in defiance even of a rescript of the reac- 
 tionary period, dated June, 1850, against preventive arrest in the 
 case of priests. They are confined in a prison chiefly used as an 
 hospital, of course for the benefit of their health. They are allowed, 
 for clothing and maintenance, the liberal sum of six grains, about 
 twopence halfpenny, a day ; and even this they have had a hard 
 struggle to keep. They are still, however, as priests, spared from 
 the floggings which the police inflicted upon members of the 
 other learned professions i but they have the affliction of living in 
 a place where herds of young lads, taken up for petty offences, 
 are kept for months and years, without care or discipline, and 
 inured to the general practice of vices too horrible to name. 
 
 I have now, I think, made good the undertaking with which I 
 entered on this class of statements. 
 
 II. The next portion of my task is to deal with the points in 
 which the Neapolitan Government have controverted the sub- 
 stance of my inculpatory statements, but in which I find no cause 
 to recede from, but more to heighten, them. 
 
 The material contradictions, then, made to me, which fall into 
 this class, are as follows : — 
 
 (1.) I have stated that at the time when I left Na})les " a trial 
 was expected to come on immediately in which the number 
 charged was between four and five hundred ;"* and the reply is 
 that the " Act of Accusation," published on the 11th of last June, 
 contained the precise number of thirty-seven. 
 
 * Page 10.
 
 16 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL EEPLY 
 
 I adhere to my statement as it stands, adding that all these 
 men, charged for the events of May, 1848, had already received 
 an amnesty for those acts, solemnly published on the 24th of that 
 month, but since declared null by Navarro and his colleagues. 
 
 I admit that forty-six only, not thirty-seven as the Review 
 states, were formally indicted by the Government in Naples before 
 the Court. But at the same time were instituted two similar 
 trials for the same events in the provinces of Salerno and Terra di 
 Lavoro respectively, the first of which included fifty-four per- 
 sons, and the second forty-six. Thus then the number of thirty- 
 seven is at once raised to one hundred and forty- six persons. 
 
 But this is far below my number. What then became of the resi- 
 due ? An hundred were, as we have seen, disposed of by pro- 
 cesses in other provinces ; and 1 have before me the " Requisitorie 
 ed Atti di Accusa " in the cause, from which it appears that the 
 number of persons whose names were included in the process by 
 the Procurator-General was three hundred and twenty-six. Thus 
 we have a total of four hundred and twenty-six, which seems 
 pretty well to warrant my statement, that the number was 
 "between four and five hundred." But even this was not the 
 limit ; for the words are judiciously added,* " together with 
 others not yet well enough known " ! 
 
 It is quite true, however, but in no way weakens my state- 
 ment, that the trials of these three hundred and twenty-six 
 were not at once proceeded with. For three of the whole number, 
 and three only, the process was unanimously declared extinct, 
 upon a ground, the sufficiency of which cannot well be doubted : 
 they were dead. 
 
 I will now show how these three hundred and twenty-six were 
 disposed of in the month of June last. 
 
 The papers against them amounted to 227 volumes ; and it 
 was doubtless found necessary to reduce the numbers to be in- 
 cluded in one and the same trial. The Procurator-General, ac- 
 cordingly, demanded that the court should commence forthwith 
 the trial in the cases of forty-six, and the process of judgment as 
 in contumacy against fifty ; should give warrants of arrest (which 
 it will be remembered conmionly follow arrest) against three ; 
 should direct further examination and prosecution of the cause 
 
 * Requisitorie, &c., p. 15.
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 17 
 
 against two groups, one of twenty-nine, and the other of fifty- 
 seven ; should suspend proceedings against two other groups, one 
 of fifty-nine, and the other of seventy-five ; should remit two to 
 the local judges ; extinguish the process for three who were dead ; 
 and declare in respect of two that there was no ground for any 
 proceeding against them. These demands were voted by the 
 judges, with some trivial variations, and one more significant. It 
 relates to the two living men whom, with the three dead, it was 
 ])roposed by the Government to let ofl*. The language of the 
 Procurator-General was strong. He declares there was no 
 shadow of evidence against the first of them, while excellent re- 
 ports of his political conduct had been received. His name was 
 Leopoldo Tarantino. The other was named Giacomo Tofani : he 
 had been arrested because he bore the same name with another 
 person whom the police wanted to get hold of ; and the manner in 
 Naples is, if there is a suspicion against John Jones, but there 
 are two John Joneses, and it is not known which may be the 
 man, to take both. Thus it had happened that Giacomo Totani 
 had been arrested by mistake. On these tolerably sufficient 
 grounds, then, the Procurator-General desired the release of these 
 two. Will it be believed that there was a division among the 
 judges upon the question of releasing them ? It was carried, in- 
 deed ; but the language of the judges in regard to these men 
 was, that the proofs against them were vague, and preponderated 
 for their innocence rather than their guilt.* What keenness of 
 scent, what fidelity of instinct, what appetite for condemnation ! The 
 prosecutor declares one case to be a simple mistake ; the other 
 without a tittle of evidence ; and the judgcis find by a majority that 
 on the whole the evidence preponderates, forsooth, for innocence ! 
 But I said, and I say again, fresh investigation usually tends to 
 heighten, and not extenuate, these proceedings. I said incau- 
 tiously t that the Government had laid aside- — meaning they had 
 abandoned — the charge founded on the fiimous forgery, in the 
 case of Poerio. I was wrong. That forgery is still alive. In 
 this same cause of May 15 are the names of Poerio and Drago- 
 netti ; and it is expressly voted by the judges that the case of this 
 prosecution (that is to say, upon the forged letter) is reserved for 
 further investigation. | Dragonetti remains untried in prison all 
 the while. 
 
 * Eequisitorie, &c., p. GS. f First Letter, p. 20. 
 
 t Requisito',-i<', p. 75.
 
 18 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 Lastly : such being the numbers, and such the facts, the Go- 
 vernment has packed the court (the First Chamber) with a ma- 
 jority of judges who may be depended on for rigour. At their 
 head is, as usual, the shameless forehead of Navarro. Radice, 
 who could not be trusted, having in a previous trial voted for 
 acquittal, was translated to the Second Chamber. His place is 
 supplied by Nicola Morelli, on whom full reliance may be placed ; 
 and who, with Canofari, Cicero, and Vitale, all gathered round 
 Navarro, will in due time do full justice to the cause of order, as 
 it is understood by them. Nay more ; to meet the possible case 
 of an accidental vacancy, Mandarini is in readiness as a Sup- 
 plente. He has just been made Cavaliere ; and is supposed to 
 know something of the authorship of the Rassegna or Review of 
 the Two Letters. 
 
 I have now done with the cause of the 15th of May ; and I 
 really must ask what fatuity it was that tempted the Neapolitan 
 apologist to venture upon such a ground ? 
 
 (2.) I have stated, and the point is one of importance, that 
 the accusation of Jervolino " formed the sole real basis of the 
 trial and condemnation of Poerio." * This is contradicted by 
 the reply,! and an animated defence is offered on behalf of Jer- 
 volino, who I have no doubt is a worthy representative of the 
 class to which he belongs ; a class, occupying a high place in the 
 working machinery of the Neapolitan Government ; a class, whose 
 character has been drawn once and for ever by Manzoni in those 
 burning words, '' diventando infami, rimanevano oscuri."X It is 
 also observed, with an unconsciousness altogether worthy of 
 notice, that, even although a portion of Jervolino's evidence should 
 have been disproved by its own self-contradiction, it does not 
 follow but that the rest of it might be true. The notion of public 
 justice and morality involved in a remark like this is worth far 
 more than pages of argument or invective from an opponent in 
 revealing, and in realizing to the minds of foreigners, the real 
 spirit and character of the political system of Naples. 
 
 I have then to repeat my statement, that Poerio was condemned 
 only on the evidence of the paid informer Jervolino ; I add that 
 this took place though evidence was offered of his being paid, 
 
 ♦ Page 22 t Page 41. 
 
 t In the ' Colonna Tnfamc'
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 19 
 
 and though by the law of Naples the evidence of a paid informer 
 cannot be received. 
 
 My assertion was supported by a reference to certain evidence 
 of Romeo and Margherita, with reasons why it could not stand. 
 There was another piece of hearsay evidence, which I thought not 
 worth mention ; for it went merely to the point that a man called 
 Cantone was making use of Poerio's name to recommend himself, 
 without any proof or presumption that he had authority so to 
 employ it. Now I do not really believe, that the mind of any 
 judge was or could be influenced by testimony of such a nature, 
 which at the most could only have been used as a clue to further 
 inquiries. 
 
 (3.) I stated, that the fate of Poerio and his companions had 
 been aggravated since my departure from Naples by their re- 
 moval to Ischia. 
 
 The official reply assures us of various recent relaxations of 
 some importance. I know from other sources that Poerio was in 
 the hospital during the autumn : according to the custom, he 
 was not chained, while there, to another person ; he, however, car- 
 ried his own chain. At another time he was released from the 
 double chain, and was himself chained to a ring in the centre of 
 the floor, I believe called the pwitale, instead. 
 
 I rejoice in any amelioration of such a lot ; and the even par- 
 tial escape from double chaining is the escape from a horror 
 which, for a gentleman, cannot be exaggerated. 
 
 But I grieve to say that my statement was but too strictly true. 
 Bad as was the condition of Poerio and his fellow-sufferers at Nisida, 
 it was greatly, and, I fear, purposely, aggravated by the removal. 
 One word, however, upon Nisida. It is denied * that the Bagni are 
 under the care of his Royal Highness the Contedi Aquila, of whom 
 I had said that as admiral he had charge of the island. But it is 
 not denied, that an order was sent by his Royal Highness to enforce 
 at that time the use of double irons in the prison ; and the fact, 
 I believe, is, that I was inaccurate in stating the Prince had 
 charge of the island as admiral : he has, however, in that capa- 
 city, together with other ' Rami alieni della Real Marina,'' charge 
 of \\\iiforzati or convicts. It is admitted f that Palumbo visited 
 the prison in the capacity of a subordinate officer to the King's 
 
 * Rassegna, p. 50. t Ibid., p. 51. 
 
 c. 2
 
 20 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 brother. Thus my assertions are made completely good. But it 
 is boasted, forsooth, that he did not deprive some of the prisoners 
 who were in the best circumstances of the mattresses they had, 
 by their own means, procured. I will add, while touching upon 
 mattresses, another fact. Nisco was carried while ill to Nisida. 
 On arriving there he was put into the bed, and made to use the 
 bed-linen, of a patient who had just before died of consumption. 
 
 Upon arriving at Ischia, the prisoners removed thither were 
 put into filthy dens, so contrived that a sentry had the power of 
 seeing and hearing whatever passed in them. With this sentry 
 was a companion, who was supplied with that mild recipe for 
 preserving order, a stock of hand grenades. Though the pri- 
 soners had never been out of custody, they were subjected to a 
 personal search, much more minute than decent. Their money, 
 linen, and utensils were taken from them. The boast of permitted 
 mattresses does not reach to Ischia ; for three months they had to 
 sleep upon the stones. For their meals, they were allowed neither 
 seat, table, nor cup. Cups, it may be said, were hardly wanted ; 
 for their allowance of water was reduced to three Neapolitan 
 pounds (36 ounces) per day, of bad quality. There, too, a navy 
 surgeon was placed in disponihilita, something between suspen- 
 sion and dismissal with us, for having inconveniently certified the 
 ill-health of a prisoner. To us it may sound less than it was 
 felt by them to be, that in the hot month of June they, the 
 political convicts, were, (I believe, exclusively,) ordered to wear 
 their thick and heavy dress of coarse woollen and leather, both in 
 and out of doors. A woman of abandoned profligacy, whose 
 name I forbear to mention, ruled the house of the commandant, 
 insulted the prisoners, and the women of their families, when 
 applying for admission to see them, at her will, and caused a 
 Serjeant to be sentenced to confinement for not having forced the 
 wife of one of them to part with the infant at her breast when she 
 was entering to see her husband. And, omitting other particulars, 
 I shall conclude with stating that these gentlemen were compelled 
 to attend the floggings inflicted in this bagno for various offences 
 on the vilest of the convicts, the refuse of the refuse of mankind. 
 Such are the accounts that I have received through channels that 
 command ray belief. I will not, indeed, believe that those in au- 
 thority at Naples are aware of all this. I will hope that, as to
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVEENMENT. 21 
 
 much of It, they are more grossly darkened than the most careless 
 gatherer of hearsay rumours among the butterfly visitors of 
 Naples ; but I really must remind them of their appropriate 
 motto, errare, nescire, decipi, et malum et turpe ducimus. 
 
 Of the effect upon the health of the prisoners that such treat- 
 ment must produce, it is painful to make an estimate ; and were 
 anything too strange to be woven into this melancholy tissue of 
 fact that eclipses fiction, I should have received with incredulity the 
 further statement, that Pirontc, when suffering under a paralytic 
 aflfection, was not suffered to enter the hospital, and that oral 
 orders were given by General Palumbo that only three of the 
 political convicts should at any time be allowed to be received 
 there at once ! 
 
 But I must not omit to call attention to the statistics of the 
 results. They were, I believe, as follows, as early as September 
 last : — Seventeen persons had been condemned to irons in the 
 preceding February ; three of them were by that time ill at 
 Ischia ; one at Piedigrotta ; three at Pescara ; while three more, 
 Margherita, Vallo, and Vellucci, were dead. Surely, then, the 
 gallows may well be spared ! 
 
 III. Passing on from the contradictions thus offered me, I have 
 next to deal with the cases in which the semblance of a contradiction 
 to my statements is put forth, and I am, of course, found guilty of 
 exaggeration or calumny ; while any real contradiction, such as 
 can be dragged forth to light and brought to account, is carefully 
 avoided, 
 
 1. Thus there is a very long statement* made of the process 
 prescribed or indicated by law for the treatment of offenders, which 
 is meant to be taken as a reply to my charges on that head. 
 
 But the author has passed by the fjict that my main charge 
 against the Governtncnt is its utter lawlessness. I am obliged to 
 repeat it : and I say there is no body of brigands in the country 
 which breaks the laws of Naples with the same hardihood, or on 
 the same scale, as does the Government by the hands of its agents. 
 
 The law of Naples, however, is not that which my Reviewer 
 has stated it to be. The law of Naples is the Constitution of 
 1848. That is the law which is systematically, continually, and 
 in all points broken by the Government. But even tlie older, and 
 the newer, laws of the absolute kings of Naples are broken also in 
 * Rassegiia, pp. 14-2.0.
 
 22 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL KEPLY 
 
 the most flagrant manner. In some points probably they are not, 
 namely, where they need no breaking ; and where their character 
 is already harsh and cruel, as I believe to be the case with the 
 law of treason generally. Again, what need to bi'eak the law in a 
 point like that where the author tells us* that in all State offences 
 the police may arrest and detain prisoners ivithout being covjined 
 to any Ihnit of time ? 
 
 I should, however, be abusing the patience of the reader were 
 I to discuss anew that part of the subject which relates to the 
 arrest, prosecution, and trial of those who have been so unhappy 
 as to become objects of the suspicion, niahce, cupidity, or vinuic- 
 tiveness of the police. For it has already been sifted to the 
 bottom, in a work prepared, indeed, and published without my 
 privity, but which has fallen under my eye : it is entitled ' A 
 detailed Exposure of the Apology put forth by the Neapolitan 
 Government,' f and has evidently been drawn up with a careful- 
 ness and knowledge equal to the singular ability it displays. It 
 is only lest the circumstance of its being anonymous should 
 slacken the interest its title would create, that I have thought it 
 my duty to make this reference. 
 
 2. Again, when I have stated, as an eye-witness, that prisoners 
 in the Vicaria are brought upstairs to the doctors, instead of 
 being visited by them, according to the rules, it is no answer to 
 me to say that the physicians of Naples are highly respected, and 
 discharge all their duties honourably. And as I am thus met, I 
 will go further, and say, the medical men of Naples exercise their 
 profession as regards State prisoners in fear and trembling, and 
 that they are frequently compelled, by the fear of the displeasure 
 of Government and of the loss of their bread if they make an 
 inconvenient report, to consider the wishes and purjjoses of the 
 police in stating their professional opinions rather more than the 
 health of the prisoners. 
 
 3. Again, I stated % that Pironte was confined for two months 
 before his sentence in a cell at the Vicaria eight feet square, with 
 two companions, lighted only by a grating at the top, out of which 
 they could not see. 
 
 I am told in reply § that Pironte w^rote his defence in this 
 
 den, and that the present King shut up the dark subterranean 
 
 dungeons. But I never said it was dark ; never said it was sub- 
 
 * Kassegua, p. 18. t Lougmans, 1852. J Page 10. § Eassegaa, pp. 28, 29.
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 23 
 
 tcrranean : and I am met with mere sound and vapour, instead 
 of plain answers to plain and pointed allegations. I must, how- 
 ever, observe on a strange proceeding. In this and several in- 
 stances, my charges, in order that they may aftord some matter 
 for contradiction, are very grossly mistranslated,* and the answer 
 is given to the sense thus put upon them. 
 
 Yet, although this pretended reply does not contradict me, 
 I must contradict it. I know not what refinements may enter 
 into the strict definition of a criminale, but I say that the dungeons 
 are not shut up. Porcari was in a dungeon last February, un- 
 tried. He is there still. Here, again, I am met with a make- 
 believe reply, and told that the name Maschio belongs to a pro- 
 menade in the highest part of the Castle of Ischia, and that there 
 are cells near it for such prisoners as have broken the rules of the 
 Bagno. What have we to do with them ? J. stated t that Por- 
 cari was lying untried in a dark dungeon, twenty-four feet, or else 
 palms, below the level of the sea ; I believe I should have said of 
 the ground. This statement is not denied. I will now enlarge 
 it, by adding that, in this horrible condition, he is completing the 
 third year of his imprisonment. Beyond the place in which he 
 is immured, nothing can be known of him. The commonest pru- 
 dence forbids communication about him with the only person allowed 
 to visit him in that Stygian abyss — his wife. And we must recol- 
 lect that, had he escaped, she might probably have been taken in 
 his stead. For it is a practice of the chosen defenders of order and 
 the public peace at Naples, if they are in search of a political sus- 
 pect, and conceive he has absconded, to arrest and detain indefinitely 
 any of his relations they please ; for is it not possible that they mai/ 
 know wliither he is gone ? I do not speak at random. About one 
 year ago, a Neapolitan named Morice made his escape from his 
 country. In Juno last, his household, coiisisthirf exclusively of 
 women, was subjected to one of those nocturnal visits from the 
 police which I have described. They carried off one of his two 
 sisters and an aged domestic servant ; they moreover apprehended 
 a male relative, who was the stay and adviser of the family. The 
 second and only remaining sister they humanely left to enjoy her 
 freedom as she might. Nay, such was the excess of leniency, that 
 the old servant, accused of nothing, was released after two months' 
 confinement. The male relative and the arrested sister were still, 
 
 * Rassegna, pp. 25, 40, et alibi. f P- 17.
 
 24 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 in November last, expiating the crime of their relationship. The 
 treatment of these women by the gendarmes was such, that one of 
 that body, by the orders of a foreign soldier not dead to the spirit 
 of his profession, received a severe flogging for it. Indeed, I 
 have been informed that, for two months, the sister thus arrested 
 was confined in a cell along with two common prostitutes. I could 
 add other instances of confinement in criminali or dungeons, by 
 which I understand the apologist to mean cells commonly under- 
 ground and wholly or almost without light. But it is needless. 
 For his assertion on this head, although made to carry half a 
 page * of eulogy and adulation, seems to be cautiously restricted 
 at the close to this, that there are now no unlighted cells below 
 the level of the earth in the particular ])rison of the Vicaria, 
 wliich amounts to but little, and was scarcely worth his while to 
 state. 
 
 4. I come next to the most important of these cases, namely, the 
 question of the number of political prisoners in the kingdom of the 
 Two Sicilies, which has been made the great rallying point for the 
 defenders of the Neapolitan Government, and the main source and 
 stay of invective against me. Let us now come to the facts. 
 
 The substance of my own statement f on this point is as follows : 
 1. That " the general belief is, that the prisoners for political 
 offences in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies are between fifteen or 
 twenty, and thirty thousand." 2. That, for myself, "I do believe 
 that twenty thousand is no unreasonable estimate." 3. That 
 " there can be no certainty on the point," as all " means of 
 accurate information" are withheld. 4. That my statement had 
 " been met by an assertion purporting to be founded on returns, 
 that instead of twenty thousand they were about two thousand." % 
 "Let the Neapolitan Government," I added, "have the full 
 benefit of the contradiction I have mentioned;" upon which I, 
 however, suspended my own judgment. 
 
 Upon reviewing these passages, the only fault I have to find 
 with them, strange to say, is this, that they admit too much in 
 favour of the Neapolitan Government. When I wrote the pas- 
 sages last quoted, I had seen a dispatch from Naples, which 
 alluded to certain returns of the number of prisoners, as a con- 
 tradiction of my statement ; but I had not seen the returns theiu- 
 selves ; and hence, not doubting that they were what they were 
 
 * Rasscgna, p. 28. t 1st Letter, \^. 9. X 2i)d Letter, p. 42.
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 25 
 
 described to be, I adopted that description, and too eagerly and 
 promptly announced that the Neapolitan Government reduced 
 the twenty thousand to two thousand, and this upon the strength, 
 as alleged, of official returns. 
 
 But the moment that these returns met my eye, I could not 
 fad to observe that, though carefully paraded as a contradiction to 
 ray allegation, they were, even without the smallest impeachment 
 of their bona fides, no contradiction at all ; and they left the ques- 
 tion exactly M^here they found it, yet subject to the general rule, 
 as I think, that what is not contradicted in an official answer is 
 really confessed. 
 
 I say, without the smallest impeachment of their bona fides. I 
 shall raise no question about Cav. Pasqualoni or Signer Barto- 
 lomucci, by whom they are attested, although I ought to state 
 that this has been done publicly by others as to the second of 
 these functionaries ; * but in justice to my subject, I must observe, 
 that among ourselves, in a contested matter, any returns incapable 
 of verification would be received as so much waste paper. On 
 gi'ounds the most broad and general, they can only deserve credit 
 with the nation when the nation has some control over them, some 
 means of inquiring whether they are correct, of exposing where 
 they are wrong, of punishing where they are corrupt. The re- 
 sponsibility of public functionaries, and a free press for the detec- 
 tion of fraud or error, are the essential conditions of credibility in 
 such documents. Of neither of these is there the faintest shadow 
 in Naples. Even in the point of mere good faith, icliose good 
 faith is it on which we are to i-ely? Not the good faith of Barto- 
 lomucci and Pasqualoni, who sit peaceably in their official rooms 
 in Naples, but the good faith of somebody in Bari, in Reggio, in 
 Teramo, in Cosenza, and so forth ; somebody who, unless he be 
 a happy exception to general rules in those latitudes, is ready at 
 any moment to break, for a piastre, any rule under which he is 
 charged to act ; somebody who sends up his schedule, say from 
 Bari, when the public there have no knowledge that he is framing 
 it, just as when it is published they will have no means of testing 
 it ; and if they attempted to question it, they would promptly rank 
 as enemies of order, and be added to the number of those who arc 
 the unfortunate subjects of the return. 
 
 * Massari, p. 173.
 
 26 AN EXAMINATIOxV OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 But now I will analyze the headings of these returns, and will 
 show that I am strictly accurate in declaring that they leave the 
 matter precisely where they found it ; just as much so as if A 
 should say, There were thirty thousand English at Waterloo, and 
 B should reply. No, for I will show you by returns from the Horse 
 Guards, that the Scots Greys did not number eight hundred. 
 
 My estimate then refers to the number of " political prisoners 
 in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies." 
 
 We are presented in reply with a " Stato Numerico degli im- 
 putati politici presenti in giudizio in carcere, o con modo di 
 custodia esteriore, presso le Grandi Corti Speciali dei Dominii 
 Continentali del Regno delle Due Sicilief^ and a " Stato Nomi- 
 native degli individui che trovansi in carcere a disposizione della 
 polizia per reati politici nelle diverse provincie dei Dominii Con- 
 tinentali del Regno delle Due Sicilie.'" These returns give a gross 
 total of 2024 in prison, and of 79 out of prison but under 
 restraint. 
 
 Their titles may be rendered into English as follows : — ■ 
 
 No. 1. '' Number of persons charged on political grounds and 
 under judicial process (being either prisoners or under custody 
 out of doors) before the Gnmd Special Courts of the Continental 
 Dominions of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies." And No. 2. 
 " Return of the names of persons in prison under the authority 
 of the police for political offences in the several Provinces of the 
 Continental Dominions of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies." 
 
 It shall now be shown that almost every word of these titles is 
 a separate, clear, and important curtailment and limitation of the 
 account of prisoners, cutting otf from the return one large class 
 after another, so that at last the numbers returned have no more 
 to do with my estimate than the number of the Scots Greys with 
 the total number of English at Waterloo. For, — 
 
 First. No. 1 is a return of " imputati,'' persons under charge : 
 whereas a main portion of my accusation is, that persons are 
 arrested, and that not by way of rare exception, but habitually 
 and in multitudes, without any charge at all, "per ordine 
 superiore," as the portentous phrase is, it being "the essential 
 aim of the system to create a charge," not to discover a crime.* 
 
 Secondly. The return does not profess to be a return even of 
 
 * Page 12.
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 27 
 
 all prisoners who have been charged : it is of prisoners who, 
 having been charged, are under judicial process. Here then lies, 
 I must say, a great mystery of iniquity ; and whatever be the 
 deficiency in knowledge of Neapolitan law which the defender 
 charges upon me, I am thankful to have just enough for its 
 detection. Be it known then, that before there is any giudizio^ 
 properly so called, or process before the tribunals, which com- 
 mences either with the requisitoria, or with the atto d' accusa or 
 indictment, there is an istruzione or preparatory process which may 
 and does cover a great length of time, between the period when 
 the prisoner had a charge lodged against him, and thus became 
 an imjmtato, and the time when his trial before the court com- 
 mences with the requisitoria or the atto d' accusa ; during which 
 indefinite time, his case is in the hands of the police department, 
 sometimes in a state of growth, sometimes at a standstill, some- 
 times in entire abeyance and oblivion, as I say deliberately, and 
 with given cases in my mind. But we have by no means done 
 yet, for — 
 
 Thirdly. This is not a return even of the political prisoners 
 who have been both charged and put on trial, but of those who 
 have been so put on trial before the Special Courts. I have 
 already adverted in general terms to the meaning of this exceptional 
 form of criminal judicature.* Now there are large classes of poli- 
 tical prisoners, who do not come before these special tribunals. For 
 example : soldiers, or civilians who are accused of tampering with 
 the soldiers, are brought, under particular laws, before consitjli di 
 gucrra, or military courts. Ottences, again, committed through 
 the press, if punishable " criminally " at all, belong to the ordinary 
 jurisdiction of the criminal courts, under laws of 1821, 1848, and 
 1849. And lastly, there are large classes of offences only punish- 
 able " correctionally," not " criminally," such as suspicious 
 meetings, suspicious words, suspicious writings, suspicious pro- 
 ceedings generally, which are punishable before the local judges, 
 or giudici circondariali. None of these can be included in the 
 return before us. 
 
 Now I believe that this constitutes a very heavy addition, 
 indeed, to the list. For there arc in the mainland dominions of 
 
 * Two Letters, p. 25. Sec ' Exposuiv,' p. 22, for a fuller ai;d more precise 
 statemeut.
 
 28 AN EXAMINATION OP THE OFFICIAL EEPLY 
 
 Naples no less than five liiindred and thirty prisons in connection 
 with these local courts, and the number of them without political 
 prisoners is comparatively small. 
 
 For legal authority in support of these statements, I refer to 
 the work of Signor Massari, entitled " II Sig. Gladstone ed il 
 Governo Napolitano, Torino, 1851," pages 168-172, and page 
 177, the writer of which has been aided by the Cavalier Mancini, 
 an exiled Neapolitan lawyer, who has received at the hands of 
 the Government of Piedmont the appointment of Professor of 
 International Law. 
 
 Besides all these, there are yet tw'o other most gross and pal- 
 j^able omissions in the Return No. 1 to be pointed out. 
 
 Fourth. It takes no notice whatever of those who have been 
 tried and sentenced, that is, of the wdiole class of political con- 
 victs : nor, according to its terms, does it include persons acquitted, 
 but still in prison; nor persons who after conviction have suf- 
 fered their entire sentences, but are not released. Now what are 
 the numbers of the class of political convicts ? For the whole 
 kingdom I have not the means of answering the question ; but 
 in the province of Teramo, with 203,000 inhabitants, there were, 
 some months ago, two hundred and forty- seven political con- 
 victs. If Teramo represents an average of the whole country, 
 the total number will amount to between nine and ten thousand. 
 
 Fifth. It takes no notice either of prisoners or convicts in 
 Sicily, though I expressly spoke of the prisoners in the " kingdom 
 of the Two Sicilies,"* and afterwards distinguished from it the 
 kingdom of Naples, or the mainland dominions, to which all my 
 subsequent statements were to refer.f 
 
 I have still a few words to say on Return No. 2. It is without 
 date ! It is entitled a return of names, and it does not give so 
 much as one name ! It is a return confined to persons in prison 
 under the police, "for political ofiences," per reati politic i ; but 
 reati is a technical word, and implies that they have been under 
 process. It is stated by the authorities to whom I have referred, 
 and with every likelihood of accuracy, that it must mainly respect 
 persons who, having been imprisoned, charged, and tried, and 
 having had the rare good fortune to be acquitted, are, neverthe- 
 less, still detained in prison at the discretion of the police— a case 
 * Page 9. t p. 10.
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 29 
 
 not visionary, as I have already had occasion to show. Thus it 
 may supply the void I have just now pointed out. Nor have we yet 
 altogether done. Return No. 1 represents the numbers under pro- 
 cess in each province : and adds (see also p. 24 of the Rassegna) 
 " from this number deducted the persons included in the Sovereign 
 Graces of April 30 and 19 May, 1851, according to the table No. 
 3." Now table No. 3 informs us that in the provinces of Prin- 
 cipato Ultra, AbruzzoCitra, and Terra d'Otranto taken together, 
 thirty-five persons were thus released from process. But No. 1 
 informs us that, in those thi-ee provinces, the whole number under 
 process, from which the thirty-five were to be deducted, amounted 
 to eighteen ! 
 
 I consider that I have now fully redeemed my engagement to 
 demonstrate that these two Returns, produced as if they were a 
 contradiction of my estimate of the number of political prisoners, 
 are no contradiction of it at all ; but that they artfully and fraudu- 
 lently, by the use of technical terms and in other ways, shirk the 
 whole point at issue, and leave my statement quite untouched. 
 
 I must further observe, that thus leaving it untouched, they 
 are in reality among the strongest confirmations it could possibly 
 have received. My language was clear : it related to the sum 
 total of political prisoners. When it was determined to make an 
 official reply, and when months were employed in its preparation, 
 why did the Government omit from its Returns the prisoners not 
 yet charged ; the prisoners charged, but not yet under trial before 
 the tribunals ; the prisoners not falling within the cognizance of 
 the Grand Courts Special at all ; the prisoners acquitted and still 
 detained in prison ; the prisoners of all descriptions whatsoever in 
 the island of Sicily ? 
 
 The matter standing thus, it may be almost superfluous to think 
 of adducing any confirmatory evidence of an estimate which never 
 pretended to be more than an estimate, and which, having been so 
 long before the world, has been thus elaborately evaded, and thus 
 practically corroborated, by those who, had it been untrue, as 
 they had the strongest motives, so likewise had the very best 
 means to supply a real and not a pretended contradiction. 
 
 In one of the London journals, the ' Daily News,' there has 
 appeared, subsequently to the Neapolitan reply, a classified state- 
 ment of the persons who have been in custody in the kingdom of
 
 30 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL EEPLY 
 
 the Two Sicilies since the events of 1848. This statement ap- 
 pears to carry the aggregate number someM'hat beyond mine, and 
 it is one which I believe to be written both with perfect good faith 
 and with considerable means of information. Even the 30,000 which 
 I mentioned, not as my own, but as an estimate not uncommon, 
 is far from being the maximum of those which I have seen made 
 in published works by men of character and station. Choosing, 
 however, to rely mainly on what I think the very strong evidence 
 afforded by the total absence of any serious effort at contradiction, 
 I shall simply mention a single illustrative fact, necessarily limited 
 in its range because it belongs to a particular class and spot, but 
 one full of meaning, and one which may be thoroughly believed. 
 I have had means of access to a list, avowedly drawn from memory 
 and incomplete, of the names, particular designations, and resi- 
 dences of tioo hundred and eighty-six priests^ confined for poli- 
 tical causes in the prison of San Francesco, at Naples, beticeen 1849 
 and 1851. To what sort of computations this fact would rea- 
 sonably lead as to the totals of all classes in all prisons of the 
 whole Neapolitan and Sicilian dominions, I need not explain. 
 
 IV. I must now proceed to notice certain denials of my statements, 
 which were put forward before the appearance of the Neapolitan 
 defence by advocates of that Government, whose zeal outran alike 
 their information and their prudence. I shall not think it neces- 
 sary to argue upon the merits of allegations, which the principals 
 have not thought proper to adopt ; but it is right they should be 
 set out as a caution to the world, and as a needful portion of this 
 summary report upon the condition in which the accusation has 
 been left, after the battering process to which it has been subjected. 
 
 I have stated that " as I hear," * confiscation or sequestration 
 often takes place upon arrest. Mr. Charles Macfarlane f boldly 
 declares in reply, that " not a fragment of property of any kind has 
 been touched." But the official reply does not impugn the state- 
 ment which I made. 
 
 The same gentleman, and likewise M. Gondon, the editor of 
 the Univcrs, have published a romantic account of Poerio's career ; % 
 his connection with Mazzini at Paris ; his contributions to the 
 Giovine Italia, and the like. He never knew Mazzini, never was 
 at Paris, never wrote a line in the Giovine Italia. Not one syllable 
 
 * Pago 10. t Macfarlane, p. 21. \ Ibid., p. 18.
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 31 
 
 of all this tirade is directly adopted in the official defence ; but 
 I am sorry to add, it is quoted in a note as the testimony of 
 "another Englishman." 
 
 " No political offender,"* it is stated, " has been kept above 
 twenty-four hours without being examined." The official reply 
 does not echo the assertion; but, on the contrary,t points out the 
 fact in its own defence, that in cases of political crime the police 
 may detain persons in its own disposal for more than the twenty- 
 four hours specified by law as the term within which they must 
 be examined. 
 
 The same rather officious wTiter alleges that political offenders i 
 are kept quite separate from common felons. I might refer to my 
 own ocular testimony : but it is enough to say that here again the 
 Government are silent. 
 
 M. Gondon, the editor of the Uaivers, has, perhaps, been the 
 most forward champion of the Neapolitan policy ; and his zeal has 
 so clouded his perceptions that he cannot even state with accuracy 
 the value of a ducat in French money.§ He informs me || that 
 the Neapolitan judges are irremovable ; a gross error, of which the 
 official reply of course keeps clear. 
 
 He alleges that my statement of the slaughter 1[ in the prison 
 at Procida exaggerates tenfold the number of the victims. The 
 official reply does not assert that there was the slightest exag- 
 geration.** 
 
 He allegestt that I charge the Government with taking care to 
 chain the prisoners to the men who have denounced them, and says 
 Poerio was chained to a gentleman of his own profession. This last 
 is true ; but I had stated it before him. I had not stated that it 
 was the general practice to chain prisoners to the informers against 
 them ; but I mentioned a particular case, thatof Margherita,JJ and 
 the Government does not deny it. 
 
 I shall sum up this very singular list by referring to the version 
 which Messrs. Gondon and Macfarlane have given, to much the 
 same effect, of the case of the Deputy Carducci and his murderer, 
 the priest Peluso. 
 
 My statement respecting Carducci was,§§ that he was " assassi- 
 
 * Macfarlane, p. .30. f Kassegiia, p. 18. 
 
 X Macfarlane, p. .32. § La Terreur dans le Eoyaume de Naples, p. 37. 
 
 II Ibid., pp. 37 and 173. ^ Ibid., p. 42. *' Rassegna, p. 55. 
 tt Kassegna, pp. 48 and 174. \\ p. 22. §^ Page 11.
 
 32 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL TxEPLY 
 
 nated by a priest named Peluso, well known in the streets of 
 Naples, never questioned for the act, and said to receive a pension 
 from the Government." 
 
 This statement is judiciously let alone by the official Apologist, 
 ■while it is contradicted with the utmost hardihood by the volunteers. 
 
 But it so happens, that the facts in this case became the subject 
 of mention in the short-lived Parliamentary Chambers of the 
 Neapolitan Constitution ; and I take the following notices of them 
 from the publication of a well-known member of those Chambers 
 corroborated in many points by other accounts in my possession. 
 
 Carducci was in 1848 named a Deputy for his own province, 
 that of Salerno, and a Colonel of the National Guard. He was 
 treated by the Sovereign with every sign of confidence and kind- 
 ness. Alarmed for his personal safety after the 15th of May, he 
 took refuge on board a vessel of the French squadron. He after- 
 wards took a passage with nine companions from Malta to Calabria, 
 intending to make his way to Naples, and exert himself for the 
 maintenance of the Constitution. They were wholly unarmed. 
 They were compelled by bad weather to land at Acqua Fredda, 
 in Basilicata,and near the province of Salerno. That any reward 
 had been set upon the head of Carducci, or any proclamation 
 issued against him, is totally untrue. Peluso, the priest, living 
 near, received and entertained him. The party were waiting for 
 the settlement of the weather to re-embark, when they saw their 
 host approaching with a body of armed men. Three of them were 
 wounded by a discharge of musketry, of whom Carducci was one ; 
 and the effects of the party were rifled, while the wounded were 
 made prisoners. Carducci was carried off by Peluso, and his 
 body was found some days afterwards lying unburied with the 
 head cut off. I will now quote the words of D'Arlincourt, 
 not so much an admirer as a worshipper of the Neapolitan 
 Government. La tete du fameux insurge fut mise dans un pot de 
 sel, et ironiquement envoyce a ses corelifjionnaires de Naples, f 
 
 The magistracy, which had not then been corrupted by intimi- 
 dation as at present, bestirred itself Pinto, Judge of the Circon- 
 dario, began the istruzione, or process. He was dismissed ; and 
 Gaetano Cammarota was sent in his stead to manage the aflfair. 
 He proceeded in it with fidelity ; and he, too, was recalled. But a 
 third Judge, De Clemente, had been joined with him by the Pro- 
 
 * L'ltalie Rouge, p. 2.55.
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 33 
 
 curator-General, on account of the importance of" the cause. He 
 likewise valiantly persevered in the investigation ; and the Procu- 
 rator-General, Scura, honourably and manfully sustained him. 
 The Procurator-General was dismissed, and is now in exile. 
 De Clemente, in appearance only more fortunate, was promoted 
 to be giudice regio at Potenza ; but was after one month de- 
 prived. 
 
 A petition was presented to the Chamber of Deputies ; and 
 the Chamber unanimously referred it to the Ministry with a strong 
 recommendation for the prosecution of the inquiry. Upon a 
 second motion, the recommendation was unanimously renewed. 
 Those members of the Chamber, who were of the Ministerial party, 
 concurred in both these demands. 
 
 And here I close the history of the murdered Deputy Carducci 
 and the Priest Peluso his murderer : and with it ray reference to 
 the daring but futile efforts of the writers I have named to procure 
 belief for fictions which a sense of prudence and decency, or a re- 
 gard for truth, or both combined, have kept the Neapolitan Govern- 
 ment itself from attempting to palm upon the world. 
 
 I come now to the Catechismo Filosojico. This I am told I have 
 wrongly interpreted ; and the defender, describing it as the work 
 of a pious ecclesiastic, does not breathe one syllable of disapproval 
 against the doctrines it contains. It was first published, he states, 
 in 1837 ; and republished in 1850 as a private speculation with- 
 out the authorization of Government, and before the law for the 
 preventive censorship of the press was in existence. 
 
 I had no knowledge of the date of the original publication of 
 this miserable book, and no intention of conveying the impression 
 that I had such knowledge. I do not doubt the allegation, that it 
 was published in or before 1837 ; but unfortunately this has little 
 tendency to mend the case, since it only carries us back to one or 
 more earlier crises of Neapolitan history to which the doctrines of 
 the Catechism are nearly, if not quite, as applicable as to that of 
 1848. The defender does not in the least deny, that the present 
 circulation of it proves the approval by the Government of the 
 maxims it recommends, nor does he, although he says the Go- 
 vernment did not authorize the diffusion of the reprint of 1850, 
 deny that it is used in the public schools under the authority of 
 the Government. And since the publication of my letters I have
 
 H, AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL EEPLY 
 
 received assurances from one on whom I can fully rely, that he 
 is personally acquainted with the mayor of a Neapolitan town 
 who has himself received from Government an official order to 
 place this Catechism in the hands of all teachers of schools. 
 
 I may properly choose this place to offer an explanation of 
 the observations in my Second Letter with respect to the conduct 
 of the clergy. It has been said that I ha\ e here unduly exte- 
 nuated the responsibility of the Church of Rome at the expense of 
 the civil authorities. My answer is that I have said nothing 
 whatever about the responsibility of the Church of Rome, either 
 for the doctrines of the Catechism or for the practices of the Go- 
 vernment. We might find a very interesting subject for a dis- 
 passionate inquiry in the relation between the moral teaching of 
 the Church of Rome (or any other Church), and its development 
 in the practice of her members where she has full and undivided 
 sway ; but nothing could have been more impertinent and impro- 
 per, than for me to have introduced the slightest tittle of such 
 matter into a statement, which I believed to rest on gi*ounds com- 
 mon to all who recognize the obligations of revealed, nay more, of 
 natural, religion. What I did mean was, to prevent an exag- 
 gerated estimate (particularly in England during the year 1851) of 
 the share taken by tlie clergy as a body in giving countenance to 
 these proceedings. In this point of view I do not think I have 
 done them more than justice ; and I trust the reader will recollect 
 what appalling numbers even of that favoured class have swelled 
 the numbers of the imprisoned. Indeed, I have done them rather 
 less than justice, in saying I was convinced from information that 
 " a portion of them " * made disclosures from the confessional for 
 political purposes ; for the particular cases connected with the 
 confessional which reached me, in a form to command my credence, 
 were not more than two. 
 
 Such, then, upon the whole matter, is my compte-rendu. I am 
 sure it will prove that, in obtaining that general attestation to ray 
 personal veracity and trustworthiness, which, and which alone, the 
 permission to address Lord Aberdeen implied, I made no abusive 
 appeal to that sentiment of humanity throughout Christendom, 
 which has replied to me with even more energy than I ventured 
 to anticipate. I believe that, for my own vindication, I might 
 
 * Page 57.
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 35 
 
 without any new publication liave relied in perfect safety upon the 
 verdict ah'eady given by the public opinion and announced by the 
 press of Europe. The arrow has shot deep into the mark, and 
 cannot be dislodged. But I have sought, in once more entering 
 the field, not only to sum up the state of the facts in the manner 
 nearest to exactitude, but likewise to close the case as I began it, 
 presenting it from first to last in the light of a matter which is not 
 primarily or mainly political, which is better kept apart from 
 parliamentary discussion, which has no connection whatever with 
 any peculiar idea or separate object or interest of England, but 
 which appertains to the sphere of humanity at large, and well 
 deserves the consideration of every man who feels a concern for 
 the wellbeing of his race, in its bearings on that wellbeing ; on 
 the elementary demands of individual and domestic happiness ; on 
 ^he permanent maintenance of public order ; on the stability of 
 Thrones ; on the solution of that great problem which, day and 
 night, in its innumerable forms, must haunt the reflections of every 
 statesman both here and elsewhere, how to harmonise the old with 
 the new conditions of society, and to mitigate the increasing stress 
 of time and change upon what remains of the ancient and vener- 
 able fabric of the traditional civilisation of Europe. 
 
 Oa every account I hope that the matter is not to end here. If 
 it should, it will be another heavy addition to that catalogue of all 
 offences committed by Governments against liberty or justice which 
 the spirit of revolution, stalking through the world, combines and 
 exaggerates, and brings unitedly to bear against each in turn ; and 
 which, apart from the Spirit of Revolution, wounded and bleeding 
 humanity cannot but in these glaring instances record. 
 
 But I think that the very words traced by the pen of the Nea- 
 politan apologist afford us the auspicium melioris (uvi. Could any 
 human being, he asks,* imagine that a Government, ever so little 
 careful of its dignity, could be induced to change its policy because 
 some individual or other has by lying accusations held it up to 
 the hatred of mankind ? I answer — No. This did not enter into 
 my imagination. But I reply to his question by another : Could 
 any human being have supposed that, on the challenge of a mere 
 individual, the Government of Naples would plead, as it has now 
 pleaded, before the tribunal of general opinion, and would thereby 
 * Rassegna, p. 7. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL EEPLY 
 
 admit, as it has now admitted, the jurisdiction of that tribunal ? 
 That Government, far from insignificant as estimated by the num- 
 bers and qualities of the people whom it rules, and far from weak 
 in material force, has, nevertheless, descended from its eminence, 
 and been content to stand upon the level of equal controversy, 
 in the face and under the judgment of the world. 
 
 Now, I say, that to answer the statements of a private accuser 
 is a proceeding no less remarkable and significant, than to alter or 
 modify a course of measures in consequence of those statements. 
 The public and formal endeavour to prove them false implies, by 
 the most inexorable continuity and cogency of logic, that, if they 
 be true, they deserve attention, and should lead to practical results. 
 The endeavour to disprove them by an argument addressed to the 
 European public, is a transparent admission that the European 
 public is to judge, whether or not the endeavour is successful, 
 whether or not the original accusation stands. If the general 
 sentiment be, that the disproof has failed, and that the charge re- 
 mains, then I say that, by the fact of this answer, the Neapolitan 
 Government stands bound in honour as well as in consistency to 
 recognize that sentiment, and to allow it to act upon its own future 
 policy and administration, in the direction to which it points. As 
 to the question of fact, what the general opinion at this moment 
 really is, I think that not even the Neapolitan Government itself, no, 
 nor its advocates, can be in doubt, if accustomed to consult those 
 barometers of opinion upon which its influences play with freedom. 
 
 But it would not be in such case to the individual, that homage 
 would be done. The cheer of a vast assemblage is a sound majestic 
 and imposing ; the voice of the person appointed to give the 
 signal for it is one of the most insignificant order. My function 
 has been no higher than his ; I have only pointed out and de- 
 lineated ; it is the public sentiment, and the public sentiment 
 of no one country in particular, that has judged. It was to that 
 public sentiment that the Neapolitan Government was paying 
 deference, when it resolved on the manly course of an oflficial reply; 
 it will be to that public sentiment that further deference will, I 
 would fain hope, and I for one care not how silently, be paid, in 
 the searching reform of its departments and the whole future 
 management of its affairs. 
 
 ^Vheu I framed my first representation, I strove to avoid direct
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 37 
 
 reference to Neapolitan or other politics. The principle on which 
 I proceeded was, that from such conduct as that which I described, 
 all Governments, all authorities, all political parties, and especially 
 those which desired to act in the interest of public order and of 
 the monarchical principle, ought to separate themselves, to disown 
 connection with it, and to say It is none of ours. Such, however, 
 I must own, has not proved to be the case. Partly from reli- 
 gious jealousies, partly from the strange and startling nature 
 of the facts, partly fi'om an instinct which seems to suggest, 
 under certain circumstances, that at a period like this a man can 
 only choose in the gross between those who possess power on the 
 one hand and those who are labouring to subvert it on the other, 
 there has been more or less of the disposition shown, although not 
 in England yet elsewhere, to treat a statement such as that I have 
 made as a sin against one political creed, or as an indication of lean- 
 ing to another, or of a desire to dally with party and to reap its 
 favours without sharing its responsibilities. This imposes on me 
 the duty of saying that, as I cannot claim one jot or tittle of credit 
 with liberalism or Republicanism, or with liberal or Republican 
 politicians as such, for the witness I have borne, so neither can I 
 accept any portion of whatever censures may be awarded to me as 
 an offender against the principles called conservative, or as having 
 acted in a manner to weaken the hands of any of their champions. 
 The principle of conservation and the principle of progress are both 
 sound in themselves ; they have ever existed and must ever exist 
 together in European society, in qualified opposition, but in vital 
 harmony and concurrence ; and for each of those principles it is a 
 matter of deep and essential concern, that iniquities committed 
 under the shelter of its name should be stripped of that shelter. 
 Most of all is this the case where iniquity towering on high 
 usurps the name and authority of that Heaven to which it lifts 
 its head, and wears the double mask of Order and of Religion. 
 Nor has it ever fallen to my lot to perform an office so truly con- 
 servative, as in the endeavour I have made to shut and mark off 
 from the sacred cause of Government in general, a system which 
 I believed was bringing the name and idea of Government into 
 shame and hatred, and converting the thing from a necessity and a 
 blessing into a sheer curse to human kind. 
 
 For I am weak enough to entei tain the idea that, if these things
 
 38 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 be true — if justice be prostituted, personal liberty and domestic 
 peace undermined, law, where it cannot be used as an engine of 
 oppression, ignominiously thrust aside, and Government, the 
 minister and type of the Divinity, invested with the characteristics 
 of an opposite origin, — it is not for the interests of order and con- 
 servation, even if truth and freedom had no separate claims, that 
 the practical and effective encouragement of silent connivance 
 should be given either to the acts or to the agents. This policy, 
 in the extravagant development of it which I have stated, is a 
 policy which, when noiseless attempts at a remedy have failed, 
 ought, on the ground of its mere destructiveness, to be stripped 
 beneath the public gaze, and this, too, before the strain it lays 
 upon human nature shall have forced it into some violent explo- 
 sion. Certainly, there is a philosophy according to which all this 
 is simplicity, childishness, and folly — a philosophy which teaches, 
 or proceeds as if it taught, that everything should be passed by 
 aversis oculis, rather than give encouragement to revolution ; and 
 its oracles forget that there are more ways than one of encouraging 
 revolution, as there are of encouraging reaction. Revolution, 
 like reaction, is sometimes promoted by seconding the efforts of 
 its friends, sometimes by opening full scope, or, as it is said, giving 
 rope enough, to the excesses and frenzy of its enemies. Such at 
 least is the doctrine which, in common with my countrymen of all 
 parties, I have learned ; and among us the simplicity, the child- 
 ishness, and the folly would be thought to lie in propounding any 
 other. Yet I grant, that matters of this kind take their forms, at 
 particular times and places, from the human will : such as we 
 will have them to be, such they are. If any friends to the prin- 
 ciple of order contend, that these exposures ought not to be made, 
 that they weaken the hands of authority in a day when it has no 
 strength to spare, and that they inflame the cupidity and rage of 
 the enemies of constituted order, I am not prepared to deny that, 
 to the extent and in the sphere within which such doctrines are 
 propounded and bear sway, those lamentable results are really 
 produced. I cannot deny that if the conservative principle re- 
 quired us to wink at every crime purporting to be committed in 
 its defence, it would be damaged by the revelation ; but in such 
 case it would be high time that it should be damaged too. As it 
 is, I admit and lament the fact of evil done ; I find the cause, not
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 39 
 
 in the disclosures, but in the reception which has occasionally been 
 given to them ; the responsibility for the evil must lie with the 
 authors of that reception. 
 
 It may, however, be incumbent upon me, now that a political 
 colour has been adventitiously affixed by some persons to my 
 publication, to say a few words upon the view 1 take of the poli- 
 tical position of the throne of the Two Sicilies in reference to its 
 dominions on the mainland. 
 
 While, then, my opinion of the obligations of the Sovereign, in 
 regard to the Constitution of 1848, and of the manner in which 
 they have been dealt with, may be clearly gathered from the 
 second of my Letters in particular, I think justice demands from 
 me the admission that, even apart from the great embarrassments 
 of the Sicilian question, the King of Naples had real and serious 
 difficulties to encounter in the establishment of representative 
 institutions. The dramatic, or, to speak more rudely, the thea- 
 trical principle has acquired a place in the management of poli- 
 tical affiiirs in Italy in a degree greater than can recommend 
 itself to our colder temperament. Crudities are taken up hastily 
 and in large quantity : the liveliness of imagination and senti- 
 ment outstrips the lagging pace of the more practical faculties 
 and the formation of fixed mental habits : the spire of nationality 
 must be carried up to heaven, before the foundation-stone of local 
 liberties is laid. 
 
 From considering the history of the Neapolitan innovations in 
 1848, and of the reaction which succeeded it, I do not doubt 
 that, although perhaps all Europe does not contain a people more 
 gentle, more susceptible of attachment, more easy of control, the 
 King would have had some difficulties to encounter in working 
 the machine of constitutional Government. Anions; the members 
 returned to his Parliament, there were a section, though a small 
 section, of decided Republicans. The agitation for a change in 
 the composition of the House of Peers, or in some cases for its 
 abolition, before a representative body had met, and for an exten- 
 sion of the electoral franchise before it had been once used, were 
 circumstances that showed the necessity for a resolute will and a 
 strong guiding hand. 
 
 But surely it must in fairness be admitted that there was some 
 apology for this restlessness of mind, and for the " blank mis-
 
 40 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 givings" which were its main cause. For 1848 was not the first 
 year when a Constitution had been heard of in Naples. I will 
 not rake up the embers of the past for the purposes of crimination, 
 but it undoubtedly ought to have been remembered for those of 
 considerate indulgence. When a people have on signal occasions 
 seen solemn boons retracted, and solemn sanctions, on whatever plea 
 of State necessity, set aside, who can wonder at, who can blame, 
 their entertaining a vague suspicion of evil — their uneasy search- 
 ing for new and extended guarantees ? And how is this misgi\ing 
 to be cured? Only in one way — by steady, persevering good 
 faith — by the experimental assurance that the things which have 
 been are not to be again. It is idle to urge the difficulties in the 
 way of working the constitutional machine as reasons for the vio- 
 lation of pledges, when those very difficulties arose out of a mis- 
 trust, of which former breaches of promise had been the origin. 
 The only way to cure mistrust is by showing that trust, if given, 
 would not be misplaced — would not be betrayed. By its own 
 nature it is spontaneous, and not subject to brute force ; in order 
 to be enjoyed it must be soothed and won. 
 
 Now the proceedings of the Neapolitan Parliament, taken as a 
 whole, distinctly prove that, whether wise or not in every step, it 
 was loyal in its intentions to the monarchy. When the question is 
 asked in future times, whether it ventured far enough, and as- 
 sumed an attitude sufficiently firm in defending the solemnly- 
 established fi-anchises, posterity may, perhaps, return a less favour- 
 able reply. But this want of masculine daring is at any rate 
 not an accusation to be pressed against it by the friends of the 
 re-action. As against the throne, the hands of that Parliament 
 seem to have been clean, its intentions frank and upright. When 
 I say that it had within it some portion of intractable material, I 
 only say that which is necessarily true of every representative 
 assembly in the world. Suppose it granted, that through timidity 
 and misgivings it might have been betrayed into encroachments, 
 and might have applied more to organic and less to administrative 
 measures than prudence would have recommended. Sincerity 
 and straightforwardness of purpose were the fitting and appropriate 
 medicine : they would soon have disarmed its impetuosity, and 
 given its real loyalty fair play. There was the country, too, at 
 large : surely that was not republican, tliat docile cind kindly
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 41 
 
 people, so ready to trust and love, asking so little and believing 
 so much. AVliy was no trust reposed in them ? Why was not 
 the constitutional battle fairly fought? Why was not the regular 
 business of the state allowed to proceed in the forms of the con- 
 stitution, even to the close of one session ? Why was the Par- 
 liament dishonoured and spurned in regard even to its primary 
 and most essential function, that of the imposition of taxes ? Why 
 were its addresses repelled ? Upon the very lowest gromid (one 
 far too low) why were not both the chamber and the constituency 
 fairly tried before they were cashiered, and how can it be pre- 
 tended that they had a fair trial when the Government never sub- 
 mitted to them a policy, upon which to try them, by its acceptance 
 or rejection, and by the nature of the substitutes that might be 
 proposed, but would not allow them to show what they really were, 
 or meant to be, and proceeded from the first as though they meant 
 to break the royal oath, and to catch, or if they could not catch, 
 actually create an opportunity for overthrowing the liberties of 
 the country ? Had the King, in 1848, been advised to encounter 
 his difficulties with those " small stones from the brook," frankness, 
 steadiness, and singleness of purpose, his very defeats, had he 
 met them, would have been the surest pledge of ultimate triumph, 
 he would have rested not upon the stark and rigid support of a 
 military force, utterly overgrown in comparison with the popu- 
 lation and resources of the country, but upon that confidence and 
 intelligent affection which we see now working out the constitutional 
 problem in Piedmont, notwithstanding the cruel burdens entailed 
 by the recent war, with every prospect of success. It was for 
 foctious opposition to the administration, that the Parliament of 
 Naples was extinguished ; and I should wish to know what con- 
 stitution or parliament on earth would have an existence worth 
 a month's purchase, if upon such a plea it might be overthrown 
 with impunity. 
 
 It is grievous to witness in the official reply from Naples, as 
 well as in the works of the volunteers, the coarse reproduction of 
 that unmitigated cant or slang which alike among all parties forms 
 the staple of political controversy, when their champions write 
 in the sense and for the purposes of party only, without ever cast- 
 ing a glance upwards to the eternal forms of humanity and truth. 
 The people do not complain ; therefore they are the contented and
 
 42 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 happy witnesses to the admirable conduct of the Government. 
 Or they do comphiin ; therefore they are a few scoundrels, ene- 
 mies of social Older, and apostates from religion. The Catechism 
 told us, that all liberals were bound for the kingdom of darkness ; 
 and the same strain of undistinguishing denunciation pervades 
 these works. Yet every man who has personal knowledge of the 
 Italians, any man who has ever looked into the political literature 
 of the country, must know that those who are thus, with incurable 
 infatuation, lumped together as liberals, and denounced as unbe- 
 lievers, are an aggregate of individuals presenting every variety of 
 sentiment : some of them in religion being as ardent Roman Ca- 
 tholics as any cardinal in the college ; and their range of political 
 opinion including every imaginable shade, from those who simply 
 disapprove of the baseness and cruelty of the reaction, down to 
 republicanism goaded into frenzy. There is the less excuse for 
 thus confounding persons and sentiments essentially different, be- 
 cause those who are in Naples and elsewhere, reviled under a 
 common name, are not really in combination among themselves, 
 but on the contrary dispute sharply, even under defeat, upon the 
 matters in controversy between them : a proof, at least, that if they 
 are ill supplied with worldly wisdom, they are not without fi-ankness 
 and honesty of purpose. 
 
 It is true, that as we follow the course of history, we find that 
 unwise concession has been the parent of many evils ; but unwise 
 resistance is answerable for many more — nay, is too frequently 
 the primary source of the mischief ostensibly arising from the 
 opposite policy, because it is commonly unwise resistance which 
 so dams up the stream and accumulates the waters, that when 
 the day of their bursting comes they are absolutely ungovernable. 
 A little modicum of time, indeed, may thus be realized by 
 gigantic labours in repression, during which not even the slightest 
 ri})ple shall be audible ; and within that little time statesmen, 
 dressed in their brief authority, may claim credit with the world 
 for the peremptory assertion of power, and for having crushed, as 
 the phrase goes at Naples, the hydra of revolution ; but every 
 hour of that tim.e is not bought but borrowed — borrowed at a 
 rate of interest, with which the annals of usury itself have nothing 
 to conij)are ; and the hydra of revolution is not really to be 
 crushed by the attempt to crush, or even by momentary success
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 43 
 
 in crushing, under the name of revohition, a mixed and hetero- 
 geneous mass of influences, feelings, and opinions bound together 
 absolutely by nothing except repugnance to the prevailing rigours 
 and corruptions. Viewed as mere matter of policy, this is simply 
 to undertake the service of enlistment for the army of the foe. 
 It is a certain proposition that when a Government thus treats 
 enmity to abuse as identical with purposes of subversion, it, ac- 
 cording to the laws of our mixed nature, partially amalgamates 
 the two, and fulfils at length its own miserable predictions in its 
 own more miserable ruin. But surely there is another mode of 
 procedure : to examine the elements of which the force apparently 
 hostile to a government is composed, and carefully to appreciate 
 their differences ; to meet, or, at least, to give an earnest of 
 honest intention to meet, the objections of the moderate and just, 
 by the removal of what causes them ; to have some tenderness even 
 for the scruples of the weak, to take human nature on its better 
 side instead of perpetually galling its wounds and sores, to re- 
 member that violence itself has its moments of remission and its 
 mollia fandi temjjora, its opportunities of honourable access ; and 
 thus to draw out from the opposite array a large part of its 
 numbers and its energy, a far larger of its virtue, its truth, and 
 all the elements of permanent vitality. It may then be found that 
 no other means are left ; but it may also then be found that the 
 compass of the evil is so reduced by the preliminary processes, that 
 it is wiser and better to carry it in patience, than to irritate the 
 system by a sharp excision. If unhappily the risk must at last be 
 run, and antisocial crime visited with the punishment which is its 
 due, at least the what and the why will then be plain, and we 
 shall talk something better than pestilent imposture when we pro- 
 claim the intention to crush the hydra of revolution, or vaunt of 
 having crushed it. Nor is this a parade of humanity ; it is surely 
 rather the practical rule of government, which common sense 
 dictates and the experience of the world sustains. 
 
 But there is another maxim yet more momentous. I fear that 
 in Italy it is growing gradually into an article of faith with the 
 country, that the evasion and the breach of the most solemn en- 
 gagements arc looked upon by some of the Governments as among 
 their natural and normal means of defence. I shall not enter into 
 the older grounds of this opinion. Suffice it to say, tliat it does
 
 44 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 unhappily receive countenance from recent events. In the very 
 pamphlet before me I read of* the unhappy constitution of 1S48, 
 and of " the warm, accordant, spontaneous, and unanimous desire 
 of the people, expressed in a thousand forms and a thousand times 
 repeated, for the abolition of the Constitution and for a return to 
 pure Monai'chy." Now I say it is by language of this kind, used 
 with the countenance of authority, that authority and monarchy 
 are undermined, undermined in their original groundwork, the 
 principle of trust and confidence between man and man. It is 
 impossible for human audacity to go farther, than in these self- 
 damning assertions. The pamphleteer tells us now, that the Con- 
 stitution was obtained " by agitators alone ;" j but the King of 
 Naples told the world on the 10th of February, 1848, that he 
 granted it to " the unanimous desire of Our most beloved sub- 
 jects." Was he then undeceived by the conflict of May 15 ? No, 
 for on May 24 he declared that Constitution to be " the sacro- 
 sanct altar upon which must rest the destinies of Our most be- 
 loved people and of our Crown," and invoked, in terms the most 
 solemn, the trust of his people. It is now thought decent and 
 politic to say its abolition was sought by the spontaneous and 
 unanimous wish of the people. Their unanimous wish ! When 
 that Constitution had created a large electoral body, and scarcely 
 the smallest fraction of members were returned on either of two 
 several elections, who were not heart and soul in favour of the 
 Constitution as against " pure monarchy." Their spontaneous 
 wish ! When, as I here and now assert, persons holding oflBce 
 under the Government of Naples were requested and required by 
 that Government to sign petitions for the abolition of the Con- 
 stitution (which, however, it has not yet been thought proper to 
 abolish, and which is still the law therefore of the land, only 
 habitually and in all points broken) under penalty of dismissal if 
 they should not comply. 
 
 The history of one country may atford useful lessons to the autho- 
 rities of another ; and I heartily wish that the annals of the reign of 
 Charles I. of England were read and studied in the Council Cham- 
 ber of Naples. We have there an instance of an ancient throne oc- 
 cupied by a monarch of rare personal endowments. lie was devout, 
 chaste, afiectionate, humane, generous, refined, a patron of letters 
 • Rassegua, p. 9. t p- 9.
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 45 
 
 and of art, without the slightest tinge of cruelty, though his 
 ideas were those of "pure monarchy," frank and sincere in his 
 personal character, but unhappily believing that, under the pressure 
 of State necessity such as he might judge it, his pledges to his 
 people need not be kept. That king, upon whose noble figiu-e and 
 lineaments, more happily immortalised for us by Vandyke than 
 those of any other of our sovereigns, to this day few Englishmen 
 can look without emotion, saw his cause ruined, in despite of a 
 loyalty and enthusiasm sustaining him, such as now is a pure vision 
 of the past, not by the strength of the antimonarchical or purita- 
 nical factions, nor even by his predilections for absolutism, but by 
 that one sad and miserable feature of insincerity which prevented 
 the general rally of his well-disposed and sober-minded subjects 
 round him, till the time had passed, the commonwealth had been 
 launched down the slide of revolution, and those violent and reckless 
 fanatics had gained the upper hand, who left the foul stain of his 
 blood on the good name of England. And why should I not ad- 
 vert to another lesson which the last few weeks have ripened to our 
 hand ? King Ernest of Hanover is gathered to his fathers. When 
 he went from England in 1837 to assume his German crown, he 
 was the butt and byeword of liberalism in all its grades, and among 
 the professors of the Conservative opinions, which he maintained 
 in their sharpest forms, few, indeed, were those hardy enough to 
 own that prince as politically their kin ; while Hanover, misled as 
 it afterwards appeared by the freedoms of English criticism, re- 
 ceived him with more dread than affection. Fourteen years 
 elapse : he passes unshaken through the tempest of a revolution 
 that rocks or shatters loftier thrones than his ; he dies amidst the 
 imiversal respect, and the general confidence and attachment, of 
 his subjects ; he leaves to his son a well-established Government 
 and an honoured name ; and, in England itself, the very organs 
 of democratic feeling and opinion are seen strewing the flowers of 
 their honest panegyric on his tomb. And why ? The answer is 
 brief but emphatic ; because he said what he meant, and did what 
 he said. Doubtless his political education had been better than 
 men thought, and had left deeper traces upon him ; but his unos- 
 tentatious sincerity was his treasure ; it was " the barrel of meal 
 that wasted not, the cruse of oil that did not fail." 
 And now, in drawing towards a conclusion of this Letter and with
 
 46 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 it of this controvorsy, let mc acknowledge with sincerity and 
 warmth tlie moderation of temper and courtesy of tone, as towards 
 myself, that mark the Neapolitan defence. The author of it has 
 indeed characterised by strong terms the language which I myself 
 had used. But he could not help it. Language of an extreme 
 severity could not have been described intelligibly by feeble epi- 
 thets. My apology is the old one — 
 
 " Be Kent unmannerly when Lear is mad." 
 
 My description was intended to suit itself to the subject matter ; 
 I did not seek to fall short of it, I did not feel able to go beyond 
 it. The language of compliment and finesse from me to the 
 authors and agents of the proceedings I have touched upon could 
 have given them no comfort, and would have been on my part a 
 piece of nauseous affectation. I have made no approach towards it, 
 either in the former letters or in these pages. There is one way only 
 in which I can, partially at least, reciprocate the courtesy. It is by 
 pointing out that, except in two instances, where I knew the charge 
 was fairly driven home upon individuals in high station at Naples, 
 I have denounced (what I think) guilt in the mass, and have not 
 attempted to father it on this man or that. My reason for this 
 course has been that I do not know, and I believe no man can 
 know fully, how the responsibility should be divided. When a 
 Government is not bound to render any account of its own acts, its 
 own servants claim and practise as against it, the immunity which 
 it claims and practises as against the nation. Each class of func- 
 tionanes, as we descend the scale, is apt to have a sphere of licence 
 all its own, and dimly known, or totally unknown, to its more remote 
 superiors: the corruption of each one is multiplied into the fresh 
 corruption of those that follow, and hideous indeed is the product 
 by the time we get down to the most numerous class of public 
 servants, those in immediate and general contact with the people. 
 This class, in the police, I observe that the Neapolitan advocate 
 himself consigns to reprobation. In the Cabinet of Naples there 
 are men of strictly religious lives, men of known personal and 
 public honour. It is some comfort to believe that they are them- 
 selves the victims and the dupes of the system of which they are 
 also the instruments. Still more is it a duty and a satisfaction to 
 presume similarly of the Sovereign. There are indeed acts which
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 47 
 
 have been done by him and by his predecessors in regard to the revo- 
 cation of constitutional rights once granted under the most solemn 
 sanctions, upon which I cannot enter : they point back to modes of 
 training, and formation of the moral sense, so widely different from 
 ours, that while they are most deeply repugnant to our feelings we 
 can hardly be correct judges of the degree or kind of defect, demerit, 
 or whatsoever it be, in the individual so trained. But as to the cruel 
 sufferings that are lawlessly inflicted and endured beneath his sway, 
 I think we should do great injustice to the Sovereign of Naples, 
 were we not to believe that a thick veil intervenes between his eye, 
 mental as well as bodily, and these sad scenes. I am confirmed 
 in this belief both by circumstances to which I have referred in 
 my former letters, and by finding in various quarters that persons 
 sincere and fervent as the case demands in their sentiments about 
 the facts, are persuaded that he has been the victim of deception, 
 of the kind which is so deeply engrained in every system that is 
 at once irresponsible, and administered by the hands of men neces- 
 sarily fallible in judgment, limited in knowledge, and open to 
 temptation. I, for one, should not think well of the modesty or the 
 good sense of any one, who imagines that he himself could become 
 part of a system of that nature, and not partake in its abuses. 
 
 But these considerations must not divert us from the facts 
 themselves, which I hold it is a duty to denounce in plain lan- 
 guage according to their real character, without any effeminate or 
 affected squeamishness, the degenerate and bastard germ of that 
 mildness which cannot be carried too far when we are dealing with 
 persons, nor too soon got rid of when we are examining acts ; acts, 
 which have no flesh, blood, or nerves, but which are done upon 
 human beings that have. 
 
 But the supposed policy and purposes of England have been 
 dragged into this discussion, and, having been so dragged, they 
 require a brief notice at my hands. Upon the one hand, even 
 the official advocate appears to make himself responsible for the 
 charges of an excessive rigour against the government of Sir 
 Henry Ward in the Ionian Islands and of Lord Torrington in 
 Ceylon ; and he states that the treatment of many Irish political 
 prisoners has been denounced as inhuman in the British House 
 of Commons. On the other hand it has been intimated, though
 
 48 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 not in this pamphlet, that my letters are but a part of a covert 
 scheme cherished by England for obtaining territorial acquisitions 
 in the Mediterranean at the expense of the Two Sicilies. 
 
 As to the first of these imputations, I have already stated 
 that mere rigour on the })art of the Neapolitan Government* 
 would not have induced me to break silence. As to the cases 
 which are quoted by way of retaliation, the difference between 
 England and Naples is not that mischiefs and abuses are never 
 found here and always there. We do not claim infallibility for our 
 Government at home, much less for some forty or fifty Colonial 
 Governors scattered over the world. The difference is this : that 
 when a public officer in the British dominions is suspected of 
 abusing authority, any person who sets himself to expose such mis- 
 conduct may proceed in his task without hindrance and without fear, 
 without being dogged by the police, without being treated as an 
 enemy to the Throne and to public order, without being at a loss 
 to find channels through which to bring the facts before the com- 
 munity at large, or means of full, rigid, and impartial inquiry ; 
 without being told what no public officer high or low would dare, 
 even if he were unhappily so inclined, to say —that things like these, 
 even if true, ought not to be made known. On the contrary, he 
 who tracks the misconduct of public men into its hiding places, 
 and holds it up to the general view, is looked upon in this country 
 by the community at large, without the slightest distinction of 
 party, Tory, Whig, or Radical, not as its disturber, but as its 
 benefactor. 
 
 Now, although I am tempted to show by detailed remarks how in- 
 appropriate would be any attempt at comparison between the cases 
 cited against England and my allegations against the Government of 
 Naples, I feel that I ought not to encumber and prolong this con- 
 troversy with matter belonging to a separate inquiry. I shall only 
 therefore observe that I think the writer has mixed together cases 
 of very different merits and bearings ; one of them I shall not 
 attempt to criticise, as proceedings may, it is said, take place upon 
 it at an early date, while another must tell directly against him, 
 since the nobleman to whom he imputes misconduct has actually 
 been removed from office, and the third, as I believe, is wholly 
 
 * Page 8.
 
 OP THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 4y 
 
 frivolous ; finally, accidental instances of rigour, especially at the 
 remoter points of a diversified and extended empire, constitute a 
 delinquency very different indeed from that which I have imputed 
 to the Government of Naples, and that a reference to them, 
 however important in itself, must not be allowed to draw us off 
 from the question under consideration. Whatever these cases be, 
 there are in England the means of free exposure, full public con- 
 sideration, and fair trial ; will the apologist afford us those means 
 in Naples ? 
 
 Again, as to the imputation of territorial aims in the Mediter- 
 ranean, any man who has a knowledge of English feeling and opinion 
 must be aware that they now really run in a diametrically oppo- 
 site direction. The prevalent, and the increasingly prevalent, dis- 
 position of this country is against territorial aggrandizement. We 
 can take no credit for this disposition, which I hope to see widened, 
 deepened, and confirmed from year to year ; for we have smarted 
 before, and are smarting bitterly at this moment, for having 
 omitted to take more effectual securities against those tendencies 
 to an extension of frontier, which are almost certain to operate 
 if unchecked, where a civilised Power and an expansive race are 
 brought into contact with an aboriginal population. The policy 
 of England does not allow her to derive one farthing from her 
 colonial dependencies. Many of them, those in the Mediterra- 
 nean particularly, maintained for objects not properly colonial, 
 put her to heavy charge, and nothing is so unlikely as that she 
 should be seized with a passion for adding to their number. That 
 course and tendency of opinion to which I have referred is indeed 
 founded upon motives much higher than those of mere parsimony 
 or thrift, and is allied to influences which among us are of very 
 deep and powerful operation. We begin to learn and feel, that 
 mere territorial jjossession is not the secret of wealth and power ; 
 that colonization, which at no time has been more in favour among 
 us, has other and nobler aims ; that the desire to build national 
 greatness on enlarged range of dominion has been a fertile source 
 of war, dissension, bloodshed, and of consequent weakness and 
 poverty to nations. 
 
 We have entered upon a new career, that of free and unrestricted 
 exchange, so far as lies in our power to promote it, with all the 
 
 E
 
 ')() AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY 
 
 nations of the world. For the ancient strife of territorial acquisi- 
 tion we are labouring, I trust and believe, to substitute another, a 
 peaceful and a fraternal strife among nations, the honest and the 
 noble race of industry and art. For the contention which desolated 
 the face of the world, in which whatever one party gained the other 
 must needs lose, and which commonly was attended for both alike 
 with mischiefs during the struggle that exceeded the whole value 
 of the prize, England now hopes and labours to substitute another 
 rivalry, in which the gains of one are not the losses of another, in 
 which every competitor may be a conqueror, in which every suc- 
 cess achieved in one country implies and requires more or less of 
 corresponding triumphs in another, and which, in lieu of desolat- 
 ing the surface of the earth, makes it smile with the wealth and 
 glory of nature and of art, and teem with every gift that a bounti- 
 ful Creator has ordained for the comfort or the use of man. Such, 
 if I know anything of them, are the views and machinations, such 
 the labours and the hopes of England. I trust we shall never be 
 drawn aside from them by any eloquence, however seductive, by 
 any scheme, however plausible, that would send us forth into the 
 world as armed evangelists of freedom ; and this from the deep 
 conviction, that no heavier blow than our compliance with such 
 projects could be inflicted on that sacred cause. And if it be true 
 that, at periods now long past, England has had her full share of 
 influence in stimulating by her example the martial struggles of 
 the world, may she likewise be forward, now and hereafter, to 
 show that she has profited by the heavy lessons of experience, and 
 to be — if, indeed, in the designs of Providence, she is elected to 
 that oflSce — the standard-bearer of the nations upon the fruitful 
 paths of peace, industry, and commerce. 
 
 To sum up all. The execrable practices carried on by mem- 
 bers and agents of the Neapolitan Government, if they were 
 before unknown to its heads, are now at least brought to their 
 knowledge, and they themselves must have some idea with what 
 feelings the statement of them has been received in Europe. 
 
 The case has come to this point : that either the Neapolitan 
 Government should separate from these hideous iniquities, or 
 else the question would arise, Is it just or wise to give countenance 
 and warrant to the doctrine of those who teach that kings and
 
 OF THE NEAPOLITAN GOVERNMENT. 51 
 
 their governments are the natural enemies of man, the tyrants 
 over his body, and the contaminators of his soul ? And if we 
 thought not, then every state in Europe, every public man, no 
 matter what his party or his colour, every member of the great 
 family of Christendom whose heart beats for its welfare, should, 
 by declaring his sentiments on every fitting occasion, separate 
 himself from such a government, and decline to recognise the 
 smallest moral partnership or kin with it, until the huge mountain 
 of crime which it has reared shall have been levelled with the dust. 
 
 If the change can be wrought by the influence of opinion, it is 
 well. But wrought it must and will be, and the sooner the more 
 easily. As time flows on, and new sores form upon a suff'ering 
 community, necessity will but grow more urgent, and opportunity 
 more narrow, the pain of the process sharper, and its profit less 
 secure. 
 
 And now I have done ; have uttered, as I hope, my closing 
 word. These pages have been written without any of those op- 
 portunities of personal communication with Neapolitans, which, 
 twelve months ago, I might have enjoyed. They have been 
 written in the hope that by thus making through the press, rather 
 than in another mode, that rejoinder to the Neapolitan reply 
 which was doubtless due from me, I might still, as far as de- 
 pended on me, keep the question on its true ground, as one not of 
 politics but of morality, and not of England but of Christendom 
 and of mankind. Again I express the hope that this may be my 
 closing word. I express the hope that it may not become a hard 
 necessity to keep this controversy alive until it reaches its one 
 only possible issue, which no power of man can permanently inter- 
 cept : I express the hope, that while there is time, while there is 
 quiet, while dignity may yet be saved in showing mercy, and in 
 the blessed work of restoring Justice to her seat, the Govern- 
 ment of Naples may set its hand in earnest to the work of real 
 and searching, however quiet and unostentatious, reform ; that 
 it may not become unavoidable to reiterate these appeals from the 
 hand of power to the one common heart of mankind ; to produce 
 those painful documents, tliose harrowing descriptions, which 
 might be supplied in rank abundance, of which 1 have scarcely 
 given the faintest idea or sketch, and which, if they were hud from
 
 52 AN EXAMINATION OF THE OFFICIAL REPLY, ETC. 
 
 time to time before the world, would bear down like a deluge 
 every effort at apology or palliation, and would cause all that 
 has recently been made known to be forgotten and eclipsed in 
 deeper horrors yet ; lest the strength of offended and indignant 
 humanity should rise up as a giant refreshed with wine, and, while 
 sweeping away these abominations from the eye of Heaven, should 
 sweep away along with them things pure and honest, ancient, 
 venerable, salutary to mankind, crowned with the glories of the 
 past, and still capable of bearing future fruit. 
 
 6, Carlton Gardens, London, 
 Jan. 29, 1852. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 rrjiNTKD Bv w. ctowts and sons, stamfokd strekt.