The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-21 00:00:00

MAZZINTS PROCLAMATION.

The following is the proclamation, or manifest,
,o which we alluded yesterday, as issued by Maz-
zini to the Neapolitans. It purports to be
addressed to the young men of Naples, and is
dated the 31st of. August :
"Brothers I—What ought I to say to you ? My
word can be but one. When the bastonnade becomes
the law in a country—when abroad the Italian exile
cannot look an enemy in the face without reading there
derision, or a friend without perceiving pity—he is
a lukewarm citizen who remains silent, a coward
who preaches resignation, and a wretch who indi-
cates as a means of safety only the wiles of foreign courts.
You have had wretched and cowardly advisers. There
remains not one—thanks to the tyranny which
oppresses you—to whom it is permitted to address
you a single word which is worthy of Italy and of you.
I address that word to you. With a thrill of shame,
grief, and indignation in my very soul, I make that
appeal to you which all who have at heart your honour
and the future of Italy must feel • if you do not rise
in arms against the foul and debauched domination
which is upon you, if insurrection in the name of Italy
and of the national sovereignty does not become your
only thought—the ruling idea, the fever and the fury of
your minds—then, indeed, the country is lost for many
a long year, and all Europe will point at you as cow-
ards, who deserve the slavery which degrades you.
"No ! lam aware that you are not cowards. You
have proved it to your country and to Europe on
all occasions. When not led astray by false doctrines
or soporific illusions, you followed the impulse of
the heart, and the noble and generous tendencies of a
character powerful and energetic as your own
volcanic soil. France still remembers the ardour
with which the population of your city flung back the
flag which was presented to you encircled with foreign
bo.yonets' and rose in arms more than half a century ago,
against her soldiers who were then reported invincible.
No one among us forgets how from that proud protest
of independence issued among you countrymen, who
understood the importance of that banner for the future
of the country, the first miracles of valour and the re-
public martyrdom in Italy. The slow, persevering, and
perilous work of your secret associations educated us all
in the holy idea, in the name of which I now address
you. The best among you first sanctified it with their
blood ; first your army made it its own in 1820. To
you is not wanting the Italian idea, nor tradition,
nor strength of mind, nor sense of honour; but there
is wanting to you collective virtue, faith in the
power of an undertaking boldly commenced, the con-
sciousness of having, when you arise, all Italy with you,
and the just consciousness of the condition in which your
enemies fare at this moment. The fault isnotyours, but
is owing to the base and destructive arts of your mas-
ters, but Europe does not regard secondary considera-
tions, it looks at patent farts. Europe knows that our
masters are weak, that in 1848 on every side where a
rising took place they were unable to resist ; that
wheresoever waved the banner of nations the people
followed it, combatted, conquered,—did not stop or
stay unless when that banner was sustained by local
interests and dynastic ambition. Europe knows too
well our sufferings ; it sees the heads of patriots roll
on the scaffold ; reads the Government circulars,—l
know not whether they are more barbarous than
stupid—which regulate the length of your beards
and the cut of your hair, and beholds the institu-
tions of commissions destined to keep in cheek, like
beasts
,of burden, with the stick, —and beholding
all this, it 'denounces us as cowards,ldead to every con
sciousness of right, and utterly incapable or careless o
liberty.

The charge is grave, and appearances are against
us. Our endurance has been excessive. There are suf-
ferings which bring dishonour with them. A people
calling themselves Italian cannot, in the 19th century,
resign itself to the stick without being degraded in its
own eyes and in those of others. When a Government
flings an outrage of such a kind on its own subjects the
hour of its fall has already sounded. You must profit
by it, or by your silent acceptance of your shame you
will have acquired the name of the Helots of nations ;
and when men who ought to profit by that hour form
part of an indignant nation, ready to a man to follow
them, to respond to the first cry for the liberty they
seek ; when foreign Governments, constrained by pub-
lic opinion to censure the Power whose overthrow ,
is in question, and engaged in a war with a powerful
enemy in a distant country, cannot be averse to you ;
when the only enemy they had, suspected by a!1 of du-
bious policyand fatally placed between the combatants,
who may any day call upon him to act, or, if he refuse,
attack him, and force him to keep the greater part of
his force immoveable there where his greatest danger
lies ; when every man of common sense, and who is ac-
quainted with the condition of Europe, knows that the
rising of one people cannot but be the signal for other
immediate risings, and that the movement of Italy espe-
cially would be the initiative for the war of nationalities,
and first among them of Hungary, Poland, and Greece
—when all this is before you, hesitation becomes incon-
ceivable, and apathy a heinous crime against God (who
himself presents the opportunity), and against the coun-
try which is called upon to gain so much of glory and of
liberty.
"It is incumbent on me to repeat those things to
every part of Italy, and I do it ; it is incumbent on you
to repeat them resolutely and severely to yours. The
circumstances are most favourable to you. You, ex-
cept a few mercenaries, have your own arms. Soldiers
who have mothers and brothers in the country,
officers who can and ought to understand how the judg-
ment of Europe begins to regard the livery they
wear, and how it would shine out, beautiful in honour
and hailed by the love of the people, if, whilst in the
north of Italy, a Monarch opens to the foreigner a mar-
ket for men for the Crimea, these said, ' We will open
a camp for the emancipating legions of Italy.' The
foreign enemy is distant ; you can rise without their
being prepared ; you have time to put yourselves in