authority had been recognized and established, | to sanction the attempt of a subject to levy troops or to commence a war, but it was almost as monstrous to permit any initiatory steps to be taken. No positive command was sent to Garibaldi to cease at once from any preparation for hostilities; and it was not till Rattazzi saw to what a fatal termination his former indirect encouragement was likely to lead, that the government found itself compelled to resort to force to prevent a calamity which would never have threatened but for the weakness and duplicity of the minister. At any sacrifice of feeling, and even at the expense of appearing dishonourable, it was essential that the followers of the "liberator" should not be suffered to come into conflict with the French troops. Garibaldi had crossed to Calabria, where he expected to raise a force large enough to march on Rome and expel the French garrison. Only a few weeks earlier, Victor Emmanuel had been expressing his gratitude to Napoleon III. for "a careful act of kindness" in sending a French fleet to Naples for his protection and for "sympathy for the cause of Italy." Prince Napoleon, too, had visited the king at Naples and had afterwards been to Sicily, where the troops at Messina had marched past his hotel and shouts were raised by the people of "Long live the defender of Italy! Long live France!" Shortly before that day 35,000 Italians had sent a memorial to the English government asking for its influence in inducing the French to relinquish the occupation of Rome. It was not till he reached Aspromonte that Garibaldi found himself opposed by the royal troopsa battalion of Bersaglieri. Several officers of the army had thrown up their commissions rather than obey orders to fight against the chief who had done so much for Italy. It was necessary to take immediate measures, for the people were becoming excited and were clamouring against France. At the same time the true friends of Italian liberty saw how deplorable had been the error into which Garibaldi had fallen. Opinions were everywhere conflicting, but while Russia came in with an offer of "moral support" to Victor Emmanuel in the cause of order, Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, wrote a letter to the Italian journals strongly disapproving the attitude assumed by his brother patriot, and exhorting the Hungarians not to lend their aid to a movement which, by bringing Italy into collision with France, would tend to rivet afresh the manacles from which the people had been freed. But the mischief had been done so far as injury to Garibaldi himself was concerned. Cialdini had stipulated that he should be allowed to choose the troops who were to be sent against his former friend and comrade, and he intrusted the capture of the general to Pallavicini and his Bersaglieri or sharpshooters. It was believed that Garibaldi would lead his men to the mountains of the Tyrol rather than submit. As the regular troops advanced it became evident that they were in force, and that they had been so disposed as to endeavour to prevent his retreat, but it was equally certain that he had no intention of giving them battle. From the first moment while he was looking at them through his glass he repeatedly gave orders to his men not to fire, and the order was repeated by his officers and by sound of trumpet all down the line. The Bersaglieri, however, commenced firing, and Garibaldi himself was wounded in the thigh by a spent ball, and more seriously in the ankle by a bullet which struck with full force. He stood erect for a moment, shouted "Long live Italy!" again called out "Do not fire," and then was carried to a short distance, where he lay beneath some trees and began to smoke a cigar vigorously till his foot could be attended to by the surgeon. His son, Menotti, was brought in also with a wound in his leg, and several others were injured. In one part of the line the Garibaldians had returned the fire of the troops and a skirmish took place, which was, however, quickly ended. Friends, old comrades, relatives met as the two forces approached. It was a scene of regret and of mutual and sorrowful reproaches. Pallavicini came bareheaded and with every token of respect to the place where the wounded chief lay. For a very short time people wondered what would be done with Garibaldi. What could be done with him? He was carried to Spezzia to the FAILURE OF ATTEMPT TO LIBERATE ROME. fort of Varigliano, only to be released after a nominal imprisonment. In a few days it was possible to remove him to Caprera, where the sympathies of his countrymen and of thousands of others in England, France, and Europe, reached him. Our concern took a practical shape, and Mr. Partridge, an English surgeon, was sent to Italy to attend him and to extract the ball from his foot, a task which was difficult and tedious. He eventually recovered, however, and though he still suffered from rheumatism and from the results of his wound, was able to visit London in 1864 at the invitation of the Duke of Sutherland and a number of friends who desired to give him fresh assurances of the sympathy and admiration of the English people. The people, that is to say the largest proportion of the population, were eager to show him honour. His appearance in the streets became a public triumph, the enthusiasm was tremendous, and though for a time a number of the leaders of society kept critically aloof, they were in a minority, and either from a dislike to appearing singular, or because they were unable to withstand the influence of the common excitement, became even more exuberant in their praises and more exacting in their hospitalities than those who had first received the "hero" whose picture was in every shop window. Garibaldi was so overwhelmed by a popularity, the violent demonstrations of which he had neither courted nor desired, that his health began to suffer, and it was found necessary to enable him to escape from his titled and aristocratic admirers who would have killed him with receptions, dinners, and deputations. After a short stay, therefore, he re-embarked in the Duke of Sutherland's yacht and went back to the farm in his solitary island, grateful for all the sympathy of which he had been the object, but glad to be once more in a position to remember it at a safe distance. Garibaldi's day was done, so far as actively effective service of his country was concerned. It might have been better if the "Sword of Italy" had not been again unsheathed. Deeds heroic in themselves lose their force and value if they are the consequence of perverse or mistaken enthusiasm. The attempt to march 85 on Rome had been a grievous error, which was obscured if not obliterated in the pain and the pity that were felt not only in Italy but throughout Europe at the event at Aspromonte. It has been truly said that had Garibaldi been wrecked on the voyage after his crowning glory at Naples, or had he reached Caprera with an unshaken determination never torevisit the mainland, his achievements would have gone down to posterity as a myth hardly second to the deeds of the ancient demigods; but he was elected a deputy, met opponents in parliament, quarrelled and even squabbled with those for whom he was no match in what is sometimes called debate, and persisted in the opinion that he could somewhere and somehow repeat the triumphs that had only been possible and could only be possible once in a lifetime. The very simplicity and unselfishness of the man,-qualities which had wrought wonders,-made him the tool of ill advisers and led him to attempts that ended in humiliation and defeat. In 1864 the seat of the Italian government was removed to Florence, and as the idea of obtaining Rome seemed to have been abandoned, France agreed to withdraw the garrison. In 1866 the war between Prussia and Austria, of which we shall have a little to say presently, gave Garibaldi an opportunity of manifesting his undying hostility to the tyrants of Italy, and as the soldier of the king he headed a force of several thousand volunteers and ineffectually endeavoured to force his way into the Southern Tyrol. He was kept at bay by the Austrian rifles, and after defeat at Custozza was compelled to fall back, sick and wounded, and to return once more to Caprera. His joy when the war ended, and one of its results was the liberation of Venetia and its reunion with Italy, was probably little affected by the fact that he had been unable to take a leading part in the achievement. He was too high-minded and therefore had too little self-consciousness for that, but he was too easily ensnared in the toils laid by Rattazzi, who, returning to power in 1867, again attempted to imitate Cavour's subtle sagacity by an exercise of easily detected cunning. Cavour had, at great risk, surmounted the difficulty of at once promoting found himself opposed not only to the much larger forces of the Papal army, but to French battalions sent for the rescue and protection of the pope and commanded by De Failly. All was over. Wounded alike in body and in soul and sick at heart, the hero went once more to his solitary island like a broken eagle to its eyrie, and again after three years saw Rome,--to restore which he would have given his life,―taken after a brief struggle, by the Italian army and made the true capital of United Italy, while he had no hand in the achievement, and the French emperor who had so long prevented it was rushing on his fate at Sedan. Reference has already been made to an Irish brigade formed for the protection of the Papal territory, and in this association the name of Mr. Pope Hennessey will occur to some readers. Mr. Pope Hennessey, who, with Sir George Bowyer, was an ardent supporter of the Papal authority in Italy, had occupied the office of a civil clerk in the council office, and was afterwards returned for and appearing to restrain an insurrection. He had made an edge-tool of Garibaldi, and but for his own energy and adroitness his own hand would have been seriously wounded and Italy maimed. As it was, Garibaldi, first secretly encouraged and then ostentatiously checked, had added Southern to Northern Italy and united the kingdom for Victor Emmanuel. Cavour stopped short at Venetia and at Rome. Rattazzi, now that Venetia had fallen again into the lap of Italy, began to repeat the tactics which had before brought himself as well as Garibaldi to grief, and the victim of Aspromonte was again fired with ready enthusiasm at the cry of "Rome for Italy," was again caught in the net which cunning folly had spread for him. Rome had been relieved of the French garrison and was supposed to be comparatively defenceless. If the minister could only excite an attempt to seize upon the capital, and could at the same time appear to be strenuously opposing it, he might achieve the desire of the extreme party, and either deceive Napoleon III. or so awaken his sympathies for the Italian cause as to pre-King's County. As an Irish Roman Catholi: vent his effectual interference. This was Rattazzi's absurd attempt to imitate Cavour. There was no difficulty in raising volunteers, and arms were ready to be distributed. Menotti Garibaldi was on the borders of the diminished Papal States enlisting men. Garibaldi himself was at Genoa almost as soon as he heard that the farce of 1862 was to be forgotten in a repetition of the original drama of 1860. He went from Genoa to Florence, his addresses to the people were ardent and so imprudent as to be almost inexcusable if he remembered with whom he had to deal. The government, dissembling still in the eye of France, condemned his language, and affecting to be shocked at his attitude ordered his arrest and his removal to Caprera, where government cruisers lay off shore to watch him and prevent his escape till the time came for the blow to be actually struck against Rome. Then he was allowed to get off quite easily, to land at Leghorn, and to join the force mustered on the Papal frontier. It was too late the drama ended in a pitiful fiasco- in a wretched tragedy rather. When Garibaldi advanced with his followers he of the extreme school-the Ultramontanists, as men of his way of thinking were then called he had been conspicuous in the formation of the Irish Brigade, which irreverent jesters had nicknamed "the Pope's Brass Band," and he was of course opposed to the course taken by the government in relation to Italian independence, since he sympathized with the King of Naples and regarded Garibaldi as a bandit and Victor Emmanuel as a robber. At all events he had the courage of his convictions, for in a well-arranged and well-delivered speech, which lasted two hours and a half, he denounced the conduct of the government, and delivered opinions which were directly opposed to those of the great majority of the house. As he was then only twenty-seven years old this was an achievement, and though he had very few supporters he was listened to with something like interest, or at all events without interruption; but when Mr. Layard rose to reply, the house rapidly filled, and it was evident from the cheering which accompanied his retorts, as well as the remarks of Mr. Edwin J.-mes and MR. POPE HENNESSEY AND SIR GEORGE BOWYER. Sir Robert Peel, that neither Mr. Hennessey nor Sir George Bowyer could bring censure upon the foreign policy of the government in Italian affairs. In such a debate Mr. Gladstone naturally felt that he could not sit silent, and indeed he was entitled to some reply, if only for the reason that Lord Derby in the House of Lords had condemned the policy of the government towards France and Italy, which he said placed on the people an amount of taxation “absolutely unprecedented in time of peace, and only made more intolerable by the financial freaks of the chancellor of the exchequer." In a speech, fervid, eloquent, and almost passionate, Mr. Gladstone replied to Mr. Hennessey's accusations; and having commented upon the breach of faith committed by the old King of Naples towards the people in reference to the promised constitution of May, 1848, characterized the reign of that monarch as built up by, and founded upon, a denial of justice and a violation of all law. That king's son, who had succeeded him, had thrown away a splendid opportunity for impressing a glorious name upon the pages of history. No one had marred a brilliant fortune more completely than the miserable and unhappy Francis II. But sad as were the records of Neapolitan rule, the ecclesiastical authorities of the States of the Church were still more fruitful of oppression and injustice. The manner in which the inhabitants of these States had been handed over once to the military government of Austria was such, that had the people borne it they would have been no better than worms fit to be trodden under foot. By documentary evidence Mr. Gladstone proved the atrocities which had been committed in the States of the Church and in the territory of the Duke of Modena; and he concluded by declaring that the consolidation of Italy would be a boon not only to the Italians themselves, but also to every power in Europe. To the not altogether new imputation of Lord Derby, only a practical answer was necessary, and the reply was forthcoming in the successive budgets, which, even in a time of difficulty and trial, were directed as much as possible to diminish pressure of taxation on articles of necessary consumption. 87 Mr. Hennessey was not without supporters who condemned both Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel, but in the House of Commons they were few, and a tempest of applause greeted Mr. Gladstone's reply. Referring to the assertions put forward, he said Sir George Bowyer and Mr. Hennessey had called upon the house to lament the foreign policy of the government, which they alleged was founded on injustice and could not prosper; and they also said that the cause which we favoured in Italy was the persecution of righteous governments. The member for Dundalk had asserted that a revolution which the people of England looked upon with wonder was the result of a wicked conspiracy carried on by an unprincipled king and a cunning minister; and that the people of Naples, governed by benignant laws wisely administered, were devoted to their sovereign. As to the courage "that miserable monarch," Francis II., was said to have manifested during the siege of Gaeta, Mr. Gladstone said, "It is all very well to claim consideration for him on account of his courage, but I confess I feel much more admiration for the courage of the hon. member for Dundalk (Sir G. Bowyer) and the hon. member for King's County (Mr. Pope Hennessey); for I think I would rather live in a stout and well-built casemate listening to the whizzing of bullets and the bursting of shells, than come before a free assembly to vindicate such a cause as that which these honourable gentlemen have espoused.” Both these gentlemen returned to the charge a year later, however (in April, 1862), when Sir George Bowyer violently attacked the policy of the government, which he said had set up Victor Emmanuel as a French viceroy -made France the dominant power in Italy, and broken the power of Austria, but had not secured what was called the unity of Italy. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies still existed, while that of Italy had only been organized by France and England. He declared that we had not made Rome the capital of Italy— and that Rome never would be the capital of Italy. This was such an extraordinary statement, in face of what was then actually occurring, that Mr. Layard was able to say in reply that there were no Piedmontese troops in the Marches, Umbria, or the Legations-that if the people wished to return to their former allegiance there was nothing to prevent them --and with regard to Rome, the question was not whether King Victor Emmanuel wanted it, but whether the Romans wanted him. Mr. Gladstone, pointing out the extraordinary credulity and the equally extraordinary power of paradox displayed by Sir George. Bowyer, said: "To take a particular instance, there is the downfall of the late kingdom of the Two Sicilies. My hon. and learned friend was so kind as to ascribe to me some infinitesimal share in removing from the world the sorrow and iniquity which once oppressed that unhappy country. I should take it as a favour if the charge were made truly, but I claim or assume no such office. Here is a country which my hon. and learned friend says is, with a few miserable exceptions amongst the middle classes, fondly attached to the expelled dynasty-and what happens there? An adventurer, Garibaldi, clothed in a red shirt, and some volunteers also clothed in red shirts, land at a point in the peninsula, march through Calabria, face a sovereign with a well-disciplined army of 80,000 men, and a fleet probably the best in Italy, and that sovereign disappears before them like a mockery king of snow! And yet such is the power of paradox that my hon. and learned friend still argues for the affectionate loyalty of the Neapolitans, as if such results could have been achieved anywhere save where the people were alienated from the throne." Sir George Bowyer had declared or predicted that the Italians would never have the city of Rome for their capital. He (Mr. Gladstone) did not believe in that prediction. Sir George required the house to believe that the people of Rome were perfectly satisfied; but there were some 20,000 French troops kept there for some purpose which Sir G. Bowyer had not explained. Speaking as an individual, he could not but regret the continuance of that occupation: and he most earnestly hoped, for the sike of the name and fame of France, for the sake of humanity and the peace of Europe, it might soon be done away. With respect to the temporal government of the Papacy-one of the questions involved in the discussion — Mr. Gladstone, in a powerful argument, urged the impolicy as well as the injustice of prolonging it. Lord Palmerston closed the debate by declaring that the government had acted consistently with their avowed desire to see Italy liberated from tyrannical oppressors, and that this policy had represented the feeling of the country. He complimented Sir George Bowyer on his loyalty to the church of which he was a member, but affirmed that the government would be willing to abide by the verdict of the nation. The first year of the decade, the events of which we are now considering, is memorable for the commencement of that tremendous conflict which it was thought would separate the United States of America into two independent republics; and the social as well as the political effects produced in this country by the war in America were attended with great anxiety and fraught with no inconsiderable danger. The anxiety was of two kinds, the painful impression produced by the prospect of a long and sanguinary struggle between people who had formed one great nation -speaking the same language, possessing the same civilization, and in the main derived from the same stock as ourselves; and the fear (which for a time proved to be well grounded) that our commercial and international relations to either or to both belligerents would be injured and imperilled. The danger lay in the ignorance of the great majority of people here as to the real grounds of a strife which appeared to be so sudden and overwhelming; and in the erroneous impression which many of the most enlightened and sagacious of our public men had formed of its probable issue. In a word, England, because of her true and natural sympathy with the people of the United States, was divided into partisans of the North or of the South, according to the sentiments or the misapprehensions by which opinions were guided, at |