The Sun.
London, England, 1852-12-06 00:00:00

PERSECUTION AT FLORENCE.

On Saturday a deputation waited on Mr. Secretary
Walpole at the Home-office, to place in his hands a me-
morial addressed to her Majesty, on the subject of the
persecutions for religious opinions now carried on at
Florence. The deputation consisted of, the Earl of
Shaftesbury, Colonel Alexander, Mr. Wilbraham Taylor,
Captain Giberne, Mr. J. M. White, Mr. T. R. Wheat-
ley, Mr. R. B. Seeley, and Mr. J. Macgregor. The
memorial was as follows :

" We your Majesty's most loyal and devoted subjects,
beg leave to approach the Throne with our sincerest
assurance of attachment to your Majesty, as supreme
head of a Government under which your people arc
truly and deeply sensible of the full enjoyment of civil
and religious liberty. Your memorialist have heard
with deep dismay of the trial, in the capital of Tuscany,
of Francesco and Rosa Madiai, on the charge
of impiety, shown in making proselytes to
the so called Evangelical or Pure Gospel
Confession'*—a charge whose sole foundation con-
sisted in their possessing and reading the Holy
Scriptures and other religious works in their own house-
hold, and being ready to share the blessings they pos-
sessed with all who sought them. For no other cause,
and with the express declaration of Government that the
charge was totally unconnected with politics, the said
Francesco and Rosa Madiai were sentenced by the
Tuscan authorities, on the 31st of July last, to imprison-
ment with hard labour for the respective terms of 56 and
45 months. Your memorialists recognise in your
Majesty the representative of a great and free country,
whose glory it has been practically to proclaim the
sacred right of every human being to liberty of con-
science ; and though they are fully alive to the danger
of one nation interfering with the internal regulations of
another State, they feel that when peaceful and harmless
individuals in any professedly Christian community are
condemned as criminals for no greater offence than
that stated above, it is no less imperative on
every lover of liberty, civilisation, and security, to
protest, in the name of justice, of civil freedom, and
of common humanity, against so glaring a violation
of the right of every man peaceably to follow the dic-
tates of his own conscience. While your memorialists,
as Britons, as freemen, and as members of the great
human family, would consider themselves bound to pro-
test against such a misapplication of civil power, even if
the sufferers were followers of a false religion, they feel
that those among them who are professors of a faith
which proclaims the written word of God to be the free
and precious birthright of all mankind, are more
urgently impelled to protest openly and boldly against
so flagrant a violation of the first principles of religious
liberty. As the loving subjects of a Christian Queen,
your memorialists are confident that your Majesty will
share their abhorrence at the spectacle of a woman, on
such a charge, condemned to imprisonment in the de-
grading company of the worst of criminals. Sympathy
for a woman thus cruelly outraged will find a ready
echo in the heart of your Majesty, as in that of every
woman capable of feeling for the wrongs of a sister
and a fellow Christian. Your memorialists, having

discharged their bare duty in laying at the feet of
your Majesty this solemn public protest against the
great outrage which has been offered to humanity,
would entreat your Majesty to make the feelings of
of the British nation known to the Tuscan Govern-

ment, and endeavour to procure either a reversal of the
judgment on the said Francesco and Rosa Madiai, or at
least such alteration of their sentences as would admit of
their seeking refuge in some land where-it is lawful for
each man to worship God after his own conscience. That
your Majesty's throne and the Constitution of this
country may ever continue by God's blessing, based, as
now, on the surest of all foundations, the conscious
happiness and affectionate confidence of a Christian peo-
ple, who study to use, without abusing, the principles
of civil and religious liberty, is the earnest prayer of
"Your Majesty's loyal Subjects."
The above memorial was signed by the Dukes of
Sutherland and Argyll, the Marquis of Cholmondeley,
the Earls of Winchelsea, Fortescue, Ducie, Shaftes-
bury, Dartmouth, Roden, Waldegrave, Cavan, Ban-
don, Darnley, Donoughmore, Meath, Annesley,
Clancarty, Carnwath ; Lords Stopford, Dunlo,
Lorton, Bangor, Bernard, Monck, Calthorpe, Ran-
furley, De Saumarez, Hatherton, Clanmorris, Downes,
Massy, Moreton, Claud Hamilton, T. Pelham
Clinton, Charles Pelham Clinton, H. Cholmondeley,
Rev. Lord Wriothesley Russell ; by the Archbishop of
Dublin, the Bishops of Manchester, Worcester, Nor-
wich, Cashel, Down, Ossory, giamore, and Tuam ; by
21 members of the House of Commons, 26 baronets, 10
deans, 8 archdeacons, 9 generals, and 94 other officers,
19 admirals and 71 other officers of the navy, 321 jus-
tices of the peace, 630 members of the professions, 1,302
clergymen, 230 dissenting ministers, 11,431 bankers,
merchants, and private gentlemen ; and by 8,894 other
persons ; being a total of 23,172 signatures.
Mr. Secretary. Walpole received the deputation most
courteously, and promised to lay the address before. hei.
Majesty immediately.

* Literally translated from the original charge.

DEATH FROM FRIGHT.—We read in the Presse:—"An
extraordinary case of death from fright has just taken
place. A few days since a young woman was passing
near the Rue Cadet, when she suddenly fell to the
ground, exclaiming 'The rat ! the rat I' At first nobody
could comprehend the meaning of her exclamations, but
on her being taken into the shop of a druggist and placed
on a chair, a rat was seen to run from beneath her gown.
It was then evident that the rat, which had come from
a sewer, had got between her legs, and that when she fell
from fright it had concealed itself under her clothes. She
was taken home to her friends in the rue Duperr6 in a
state of delirium, which lasted four days, during which
the only words she uttered were, The rat ! the rat I'
and on the evening of the fourth expired."'