The Express.
London, England, 1860-10-18 00:00:00

TEE

The 011eial Aetna ad be. WO. leakier •
decree by which the power which was marred to
the Dictator by the law of the 16th September is
restored to the Pro-Dictator in Naples and in
Sicily. Ido not know what view to take of this
measure on the moment. Another decree suppressed
the Ministry and the Royal Secretaryship of State
for Sicily is Naples. Tbe archives of the said
ministry are to be removed, according to their
various branches, to the archives of the secretaries
of state resident in Palermo. The Journal pub-
lishes also a report of the engagement of the let of
October, from which it would appear that the
numbers I have given above are exaggerated.
The public voice has been declaring the very
speedy arrival of Victor Emmanuel, and in mx
letter of yesterday I held out hopes of his being,
here towards the end of the week—certainly, relays
of homes have been sent for him ; but on the
highest authority I can state that his Majesty will
not enter until " his cousin " has left Gaeta. It is
thought to be inconsistent with delicacy to do so,
though delicacy is a word which I should have
thought could scarcely have been found here. I
am informed, however, on the same high authority,
that 18,000 Piedmontese troops will be at Giulia
Nuova on Friday. This place, as you will per-
ceive, is on the Adriatic, a little to the south of the
Neapolitan frontier ; so that with what troops we
have actually in the capital there will be • force of
between 20,000 and 30,000 Piedmontese in the
kingdom of the Two Sicilia.. They are fine-looking
fellows, and in their gait, their manner, the very
intonation of their voices, I recognise a higher order
of beings than what we have in Naples, and feel
what are the influences of a good and a free
government. Earnestly is it to be hoped that these
fine troops will not be decimated by a long cam-
paign in the low grounds of Capua ; for at present
very manyof the Garibeldians are down with fever,
and it is impossible to look at the meagre, yellow
faces one meets with in the streets, and the
feeble forms, without acknowledging the powerful
enemy which they have in the Volturno. An
of eer told me yesterday that in his regiment and
another, consisting of 700 men, 500 were down with
fever. There was the same proportion of sick in
all the other brigades, " and it is inevitable," said
be ; " we are in the open country, and even in fine
weather our clothes are nearly wet through in the
morning from the heavy damp. We are affected
from it with severe cold, then intolerable heat and
perspiration, which leave us with violent pains in
the limbs and extreme weakness. I have had the
fever, and this is one of my bad days ; after •
march of two or three miles we feel as if we had
marched 40 miles." In Capua, which is surrounded
by the river, they suffer no doubt considerably, but
the inhabitants as well as the troops are under
cover.

I regret to say that &eta of ferocity are being
committed by the disbanded royal troops, the
gendarmes, and the reactionist population, which
make humanity shudder. Plunder and inoendia-
riam are some of the mildest acts; to these must be
added murder and torture of the worst kind. A
young man had his eyes put out and died the next
day. His father, who knows nothing of it, was in
the house of a friend of mine this morning, having
come up to Naples to take lodgings for his family,
and to whom he had been sending telegraphic de-
spatches continually without receiving any answer.
Other people have had their heads cut otf in
Decree. Anarchy and civil war prevail in the pro-
•inces, from which only a foreign army can save
us, and the approach of the Piedmonteee is wished
by every well wisher of order. Here in Naples
arrests are continually occurring, perhaps ince.-
auily, for words spoken against the present order
of things, and even • for suspicion. They are ugly
incident+ under the auspices of liberty ; but the
whole country is so rotten, that extreme measures
are doubtless justifiable. I repeat that there is a
strong reactionary feeling here and throughout the
country which must be put down. The people
must be made free in spite of themselves ; but it is
too true that there are thousands so wedded to
slavery from long habit, that, like the Riggers of the
United States, they ask to continue in their slavery,
or, like the Prisoner of the Bastille, they long to
return to their cella and their friendly spiders. God
Map as !