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THE ITALIAN NIGHTMARES. lv it bo possibl...
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THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE OF ITALY. [Th...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Sir Charles Napier And Sir James Graham....
crashed because he ,, could , not do impossibUities , " and that at the close of his life , " unworthy attempts " have been made to " ruin his reputation "—attempts which , it is p rophesied , will " fail , and recoil on them-Qftlvfifl ¦ The chief facts—as far as they can be gathered from a rather rambling mode of statement—would seem to be as follow : —On the 29 th of August , Sir Charles forwarded to the Government a report of General Jones on the possibility of bombarding Sweaborg—a report which , according to Sir James Graham , was in the hands of the Admiral " before either the French army or the French fleet had left the Aland Islands . " This document , together with others from Generals Baraguay d'Hilliers
§ andNiel , spoke with great confidence of the practica-I bility of taking and even of destroying Sweaborg—the II only difference of opinion being with respect to the ;| length of time requisite for the accomplishment of the i feat ; General Jones mentioning seven or eight days , and 1 General Niel no more than two hours . However , a I week after the Government received these reports , intel-I ligence arrived that the French army and fleet had I sailed . After this , came Sir Charles ' s second reconi naissance of Sweaborg , and his plan of attack . The 1 chief point of difference between the Admiral and the
Minister seems to lie in the fact that the former only declared his plan to be practicable on condition of his receiving a certain number' of mortars , rockets , gunboats , Lancaster guns , & c . ; while the latter did not send these appliances because , as he alleges , Sir Charles had in May declared Sweaborg to be impregnable , and therefore Sir James thought it would be useless to send the solicited agents of offence . At the same time , he declares that the attack seems to him to be possible without the mortars , & c . This possibility Sir Charles Napier vehemently denies ; and he affirms that the French Admiral and his own Admirals agreed with him
I in that opinion . I Sir Charles observes ( writing to the First-Lord from i Kiel , October 27 ) that he has no doubt General Jones's I report made a great impression at home ; but , he adds , "it is very easy to make a report . . . . Had I seen the smallest chance of success , I should have attacked without the French , but I did not ; and surely my opinion is worth more than a General of engineers ; but the Admiralty seem to think different . The General talked of
destroying Sweaborg in two hours . It is much more likely the ships would have been set fire to by red hot shot and shells , and some of them on shore , by that time . .... Had people considered one moment , they would have seen the impracticability of the attempt ; but they thought Sebastopol was taken , and I must take Sweaborg , Revel , and Cronstadt The people in England were dissatisfied , ' and , as some one must be blamed , the Government want to throw it on me ; but I will not accept it . "
Several letters from Sir James Graham , extending over the first eight months of last year , exhibit great anxiety on his part that Sir Charles should do nothing rash , or " risk the loss of a fleet in an impossible enterprise . " What this ' impossible enterprise" was , we learn from ^ the subjoined passages : — " I by no means contemplate an attack either on Sweaborg or on Cronstadt . I have a great respect for stone walls , and have no fancy for running even screw line-of-battle ships against them . ... I believe both Sweaborg and Cronstadt to be all but impregnable from the sea—Sweaborg more especially—and none but a very large army could cooperate by land efficiently , in the presence of such a
force as Russia could readily concentrate for the immediate defence of the approaches to her capital . " Under date of June 20 th , Sir James says it would be " madness " to " rush headlong on granito walls , risking our naval superiority , with all the fatal consequences of defeat , in an unequal contest with wood against stone , which in the long run cannot succeed . " In conclusion , the First Lord remarks that he has reliance on the Admiral ' s " prudence , which was doubted , " though his courage was " proved long ago . " It is singular in the later letters to find Sir James urging on the Admiral to make an attack on the " granite walls , " and Sir Charles , whose prudence had been doubted , and whoso rashness had been feared , holding back .
From a letter of Sir James Graham ' s , dated February 24 , 1854 , we learn that Sir Charles Napier , before ho sailed , had expressed his opinion of the insufficiency of the means placed at his disposal . Sir James says ho thinks , under these circumstances , the Admiral should resign the command ; but Sir Charles replies that ho is willing to undertake tho risk . The controversy may bo fairly summed up thus : — Sir James thought that Sweaborg might be attacked by tho fleet without gun and mortar-bonts : Sir Charles was persuaded that ruin and defeat would have attended on such a stop .
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The Italian Nightmares. Lv It Bo Possibl...
THE ITALIAN NIGHTMARES . lv it bo possible for the fantastical tyrannies of King Bomba to reach a still greater ultitudo than they have alread y attained , to that superior height thoy are fast rising . The Neapolitans , according to all accounts , are one of the most easily governed nations in the world ; but the frantic excesses now being committed upon them
by the maniac who sits upon their very necks , like the horrible " Old Man of the Sea" in Sindbad , must surely lead at no great distance of time to a popular outbreak . A gentleman at Potenza recently received fifty blows with a stick for some imaginary offence : after the punishment ,, he was sent to trial , and declared innocent . For this enormous oppression , there is of course no redress . Some gentlemen at Castellamare have been flogged for hissing too vehemently at a theatre . Several persons have been arrested , at the instance of a police agent , on a charge of conspiracy . A list of those to whom tickets for the Olympic Circus was to be sent was found on them ; and all these individuals , without apparent cause , were arrested . An advocate , named Mignogna , was accused of having an insurrectionary placard , connected with
this conspiracy , in his possession . He denied the fact , and was beaten to extort a confession . Another advocate was seized with an apoplectic fit after receiving twenty blows ; his life being saved by bleeding . Even the rooms of the Papal delegate , Monsignor Pizarro , were rigorously searched ; but he has remonstrated . The maniac king , wherever he goes , is haunted by fears for his life—fears which lead to the most preposterous suspicions of high and low . In October , he intends to carry his Bedlam to Resina ; and already the shadow of his uneasy brain rests upon the place , and the police are making inquiries into " the names , length of residence , and motives of residence , of the inhabitants , native and foreign , and the keepers of cafes are compelled to send in a weekly report of their customers , and of the conversation which takes place between them .
But the democrats and those suspected of democracy are not the only persons whom King Lunatic and his police insult and outrage . A very pretty quarrel has lately been got up between the Government and the Jesuits . The latter , after the disturbances of 1848 , claimed great credit and immunities for having contributed to that result . Several important concessions were granted them ; but they presumed too far upon these , and encroached upon the ecclesiastical prerogatives of the crown . They were accordingly placed under surveillance ; their press organ , the C'ivilta Catolica , was crushed ; and they were harassed by the police to a
degree which they declared to be worse than the tyrannies of the Inquisition . In the course of last April , Signor Silvestri , the Secretary General of Police , induced the Jesuits' to sign a paper , in which they made a declaration of absolutist principles , as the only means of reconciliation . A promise was given by the Secretary that this paper should be kept secret ; but it was instantly printed by the Government presses , and distributed widely . The breach was of course deepened ; and the Monsignor Pizarro , whom we have already mentioned as having had his lodgings searched by the police , has been sent by the Pope to endeavour to patch up matters .
Espionage is carried on to an extent which almost equals that of Venice in the height of her Doge despotism . One instance of this , among several others , is thus related by the Naples Correspondent of the Uaily News : — " The Duke of Bivona , a Spanish nobleman and a Carlist , resident in Naples , has been distinguished rather by his association with the Royalists ; yet police spies have been openly and permanently established before his house , and have penetrated into the interior of his society . The Duke went directly to the King to complain of the grievance , when he was informed that on a certain night , in the corner of a window in his drawingroom , the affairs of the East had been discussed in a sense favourable to the Allies . Bivona was astonished ; but , on a profession of strong attachment to the King , he was liberated from this public espionage . "
It would seem that the influence of the Archduke Maximilian , who is now staying at Naples , is being influenced to curb the excesses of the King ; and it is said that the Flogging Commission has been dissolved , and that henceforth no flagellation will be permitted except by a written order from the Minister of the Interior . But of course this order can be given as frequently as the King pleases . The insult to England which we mentioned in our last has now been paralleled by an insult to France . On the occasion of the Napoleonic f £ te , a French frigate saluted the port of Messina , but the salute wus not returned .
In the midst of all theso oppressions , insults , and mutual distrusts , Revolution is silently plotting , and eating its way beneath the gilded Biirfaco of that military despotism called " order . " A letter from Florence , in the Conntitutionnel , says : — " On tho 20 th August , there commenced hero before tho Royal Court tho trial of a secrot society , which had been detected in correspondence with tho Republican Committee in London . The most curious point that has come to my knowledge connected
with this secrot society is the oath administered to its members , which ia aa follows : — ' In tho name of God and of tho people , I swear , faith to Italy , which is to form itself into one Republic ; continual war against all its enemies , whether foreigners or Itulians , and abovo all , against the Pope-King , who ia its worst enemy . I swear to conform to the instructions which » hall bo transmitted to mo by tho delegates of tho Triumvirate , who direct this association ; I swear to keep secret the Iuavh and operations of tho association whenever I cannot
myself take part in those operations for the triumph , - of the good cause . So be it ; and for ever . ' " The Paris Correspondent of the Times says that , a great deal of conversation has been excited at Paris by a pamphlet which , according to some , has T > een printed in London , but which others go 8 b far as to say , though without much semblance of probability , has issued from the Imperial press itself . The pamphlet is anonymous ; but the subject is reported to le the overthrow of the Neapolitan Bourbons , and the establishment of Prince Murat on the throne . The Prince and his family , however , are not to retain the crown in perpetuity , for , in process of time , all the governments in the Peninsula
are to be merged m one Republic . " The author of the present anonymous pamphlet , " remarks the Times Correspondent , " is said to be M . Salicetti , who in the revolutionary period was one of the Ministers of the King of Naples , and afterwards figured as one of the Triumvirs during the Republican regime at Rome . Salicetti professed Republican opinions , and was a member of the Italian Committee . " Whatever maybe the chance possessed by Prince Murat , or whatever may be thought of the scheme embodied in the mysterious pamphlet , it appears to be the unanimous opinion of all intelligent men on the Continent that an important movement in Italy cannot be much longer postponed ; and it is said that Austria feels not a little alarmed at the gathering sjTnptoms .
The Present And The Future Of Italy. [Th...
THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE OF ITALY . [ The subjoined articles from two of our contemporaries may serve for comment on the foregoing narrative of the anarchical state of Naples . They are important as showing that the revolution now hanging over the south of Italy exists not merely in speculative minds wherein it might be supposed that " the wish is father to the thought , " but is recognised by the daily paper which most of all keeps to the side of hard concrete facts , and by the weekly paper which may be said to have an editorial connexion with Government , and to speak in obedience to its inspirations . ] ( From the Times . ' ) There is an old distich , familiar enough in men ' s jnouths , in which the writer denies that Kings or Governments have much to do with the ills which men are condemned to endure duriug their pilgrimage upon earth . A niore egregious fallacy was never licked into rhyme and thrown forth upon the world to impose upon the credulity of mankind . A trip to Naples would be an appropriate punishment for the author ' s offence ; he would there , quickly enough , see that a King can put the cholera and the potato-rot to shame . Throughout the whole of the habitable globe there is no fairer spot than the territory which has received the political denomination of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies .
Whether we look to that great island which is subject to his sway , or to the portion of his dominions which lies at the southern extremity of the Italian peninsula , there is no spot where man has been so busy to deface the choicest work of the Creator ' s hands . Who that has ever sailed along those summer seas , inhaled the perfumed air , or rejoiced in the glorious vegetation of that splendid climate , can ever forget the spectacle there presented to his eyes ? Who that was able to appreciate the human interests of the scene but must shudder at the recollection ? That fair land would seem to be a Paradise- —it is a Hell . Its
vineyards and olive gardens , its orange groves and chesnut woods , hold forth a promise which is cruelly broken indeed . Beneath them the infamous police spy , the armed ruffian who disgraces the name of soldier , the gaoler and the galley-guard ply their accursed trade . There we see the reign of suspicion and terror . It is a crime to speak—silence is more heinous still . To smile is to deride the supreme authority in the person of its agents ; sorrow implies discontent , and discontent treason . In the theatre , in the street , men look strangely upon each other , for no speech can be so secretly uttered but that a bird of the air carries it to the Master ' s
ears-He may seem to bo far away , in one or other of his secluded retreats , but his agents pervade the air like a blight , and he will know all that is said , distorted and exaggerated by unfriendly lips . The accounts which we published last week of his manner of life would seem , however , to show that tho King of Naples is not the } one happy man in his own dominions . He avoids his own capital , but ho cannot avoid himself ; he seeks seclusion , but from his own thoughts no seclusion is to be found . He will not bear to be spoken to upon business—for what must that business be ? One can imagine few situations in the world moro painful than that of the
King of the Two Sicilies , with his Minister for foreign Affairs on his right , and hia Minister for Home Amiru on his loft , and receiving from them honest roporta or tho situation of his dominions . The only « nflJ <« " position which wo can conceive i « that of a man wlwat the close of a long and ill-spont lift V No won proaches of two consciences in ulaco of one £° ™ ° " dor , then , that he Hhri . ik » iron , bu . i . »« 8 ; but ho cannot rid * himself of * PP ^™ % Z £ ^ 1 LJI ™ r C ^ Sl "IS Si ?*!; ttirX J . comparative
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 8, 1855, page 5, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08091855/page/5/
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