The Sun.
London, England, 1837-08-30 00:00:00

SICILY.

(From the National of Aug. 15.)
Tl-e events which are now occurring in Sicily induce us
to publish a rapid analysis of its internal condition—its
wants and its sufferings. When a people resolve to en-
counter the risks, and support the evils of insurrection, it is
because the measure of their ills is full, their patience ex-
hausted, and that they have no other course left but to
repulse force by force. Such at the present time is the ex-
tremity to which the Sicilians are reduced—such is the last
alternative in which the intolerable vexations of the Bourbons
of Naples have placed them. Sicily, which received the
name of Trinania, on account of its triangular form, is the
most considerable island in the Mediterranean ; its circum-
ference is 624 Italian miles ; its population, which formerly
had risen to 5,000,000 of inhabitants, at present hardly
attains the number 0f.1,600,000. Instead of its division
into valleys, the restoration of 1815 has apportioned it into
districts or departments, which are seven in number, viz. :
Palermo, Messina, Catania, Syracuse, Tupani, Gergenti and
Calta-Nisetta. A supreme Military President or Viceroy
resides at Palermo.
Sicily possessed from the times of the Kings of Arragon
a statute which secured to her the enjoyment of many po-
litical privileges—a national Parliament, composed of the re-
presentatives of the nobility, clergy, and people. This sta-
tute was replaced, in 1810, under English influence, by a
Constitution_analogous to that of Great Britai'i ; and :n or-
der to show what fruits this new organization produced at
that time in Sicily, and the actual character of the people,
we shall relate three facts—the first of these being honour-
able to the nobles, the others to the people.
Ist. When the English Constitution was published in
Sicily, all the usual rights of feudalism, and all the heavy
burdens which the nobles of the middle ages had for their
own benefit imposed on the people, were still in force: now
the Sicilian lords, desirous of winning the people over to the
new order of things, renounced these privileges with one
voice, eagerly promulgated the law which abolished, and
generously surrendered, without hesitation, the immense
sums which used to emanate from this source.
2d. The Government, without the consent of Parlia-
ment, had decided that a duty of 40E0 should be collected
on every contract of loan or sale. Thereupon every Sicilian
took the resolution to lend and sell, on the security of pro-
mise alone, and this ♦erbal compact was never broken.
3d. The Government, further desirous, without consult-
ing the Parliament, to sell a quantity of national property,
put the good up in a lottery ; but though they had these
effects valued at a very low price, with the additional
chance of considerable advantages, no Sicilian was found
venal enough to think of gaining an inch of land by the
violation of the Constitution.
The English charter continued to be observed so long
as foreigners had need of the island—that is to say, until
the fall of the French empire. • Ferdinand the First had
no sooner re-ascended hiethrone than he hastened to abo-
lish this charter, and to declare Sicily a province of the
kingdom of Naples. The English Ministers, on their side,
were not backward in laying before him a protestation,
signed by the most considerable inhabitants of the island,
imploring the protection of England to preserve a charter
which had been established under the influence of her Go-
vernment. It was thus that Ferdinand rewarded the Sici-

liens for their fidelity, for the asylum he fOund amongst
them, and for the relief they had afforded him in his dis-
tress ; and it was thus that England paid for Sicilian blood
shed in Spain, in Portugal, at Genoa, and even in her own
ranks.

.-....-.
A despotic king and a free pcoplc were signing a com-
pact alike dishonourable to both ; and history had to re-
cord, as another instance of Punic faith, the conduct of
England and the Bourbons. . _ _ _ .

The abolished Constitution was replaced by those insti-
tutions, by the aid of which absolute princes are accus-
tomed to rule their people. Sicily had from that period a Mi-
nister of police, a crowd of commissioners, of spies, and
of agents, ready to construe the most inoffensive act, word,
or thought, into a crime against the State.
She became acquainted with indirect taxation, patents,
the laws of registration, and those numberless extortions
of which she was before ignorant, and the memory of which
had been transmitted by the princes of France to those of

Besides these grievances, a direct impost of 2,600,000
ounces of mold was laid upon agricultural produce, whilst
the free admission granted to foreign grain caused the na-
tional products to fall to a miserable price. The Sicilians
protested, in the name of their ancient privileges, and also
of that gratitude which was due to them from the BJur-
bons—but their claims were not heeded. _ _

Wi,en the revolution of 1820 was accomplished at
Naples, the Sicilians readily responded to the cries of liberty
and independence which came across the Strait. But the
Princes succeeded by secret intrigues in sowing discord be-
tween the two nations. The civil war broke out, and when
the Sicilians and Neapolitans should have united their forces
to resist the Austrian army, which was advancing upon
them, it was a stroke of policy on the part of the Vicar-
General to promote dissension amongst them, by pressing
Sicily to the aid of .the Nespolitan soldiers. The resolu-
tion having been extinguished, punishments increased in
both countries ; the patriots of Sicily, as well as Naples,
were either put to death of banished ; and when afterwards
meeting in the land of exile they saluted each other by the
name of brother, as victims•of the same enemy, it was too

atc.

From that fatal day to the present, the state of Sicily
has constantly declined; and the better to understand• to
what degree of abasement she is fallen, we will briefly
examine the various elements which constitute modern civil

.... _
life, and the causes whence proceed the physical and moral
h ippiness of a people.
ARTS AND SCIENCES.—SiciIy, like the whole of Italy,
was formerly endowed with schools of a high character ;
she can boast of celebrated geniuses, and has been the seat
of the fine arts ; but this intellectual prosperity existed
only in conjunction with political liberty, and perished with
it. Since then the censorship, and police, have closed
every mouth, and have fettered the thoughts as well as the
hands of the artist. Most of the schools in Sicily (of
which there arc not more than a hundred), are now con-
ducted by monks or jesuits. Darkness once more op-
presses those imaginations so susceptible of light, and under
the gothic arches of the convents are still taught the old
system of the earth's fixedness, and the diurnal revolution
of the sun. They persecute the writer who dares to give
utterance to a bold idea, and the reader of proscribed.
works is pursued both by the Church and the State. The
school of painting, which not more than two centuries
io was so celebrated in Euripe—the discoveries and writ-
ings of the learned men that Sicily has produced—arc like
sealed books to their fellow-countrymen. All intellectual
life has perished amidst the inertness prescribed by a go-
vernment which obliges the people to pay their taxes and
be silent.
MANUFACTURE.—The Government of Naples is not
satisfied with merely withholding its encouragement from
every man who directs his active attention to trade, but
socks every means to clog, and all occasions to destroy,
every new undertaking. Add to this a law which imposes
an enormous duty on every article of foreign manufacture
—a law which might be useful if Sicilian commerce could
compete with that of other nations; but has become ruinous
under the circumstance that this country sells to foreign na-
tions her raw materials, at a low price, and repurchases them
again when manufactured, at a very high price. It is by
these obstructions that the Government continues to extin-
guish the national industry, in order that iti fiscal produce
may he maintained.
Autticuuruax.—Agriculture obtains from this Govern-
ment no more encouragement than manufactures. It. would
be vain for the peasant to sow in this land of fecundity ; for
he would be without a market for the sale of his crops,
and they have no facilities for the transport of corn or
wine. In Sicily there are neither roads nor canals ; its vast
tracts of land are devoid of water ; the population living at
the foot of Mount Etna is without—the city of Catania,
which reckons sixty thousand inhabitants within its walls,
has none but dry springs—thanks to a careless Govern-
ment, which has neglected to repair her aqueducts ; the
wives of the labouring classes go every day a diitance of
two leagues to fetch water ! Beside which, the excisemen
sell the new crops, when hardly reaped, and at a wretched
price, to ensure the payment. of the taxes. is it astonish-
ing the fields should be conceited into heaths, the markets
deserted—that a country which formerly glowed with fer-
tility should have become a vast sepulchre—where figures
more like shadows than men glide through the streets ?
COMMERCE.—What commerce, too, can a country ex-
pect, that has neither manufactures nor agriculture—neither
the means of inland communication nor of foreign export ;
of a country in which good faith has long been destroyed
by continual bankruptcies, in which fraud is unblushingly
countenanced by a corrupt tnagistracy ? Is it not superflu-
ous to say that such a country has no trade ?
But we have not yet enumerated all the.plagues of Sicily.
This island, though it produces so little, is eaten up by a
host
_of non-producers ; among whom are 12,000 monks,
who, to swell their immense riches, extort even from the.
poor man' alms ; next come 12,000 recluses ; and, lastly,
20,000 lawyers, who, piling commentary upon commentary,
and interpretation upon interpretation of the laws of Sicily,
both ancient and 'modern, make.property uncertain, justice
illusory, processes eternal, and, produce ruin to
whole families. • • „
Such is now the state of Sicily--such. have been the
deeds of the Bourbons of Naples. Let those who doubt
the fidelity of this rapid sketch read the manifestoes of
the Sicilians, addressed, in 1826, to the Vicar-General of
the kingdom.

The Neapolitan Government has consented to the
form.ition of a railroad from the capital to Nocera, with a-
branch to Cat►tellamare.

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