The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-25 00:00:00

And at about the centre of the island, that is at Cal-
tanisetta, orderlis said to have been restored. GARI-
BALDI being shut into Catania—the Royal squad-
ron hovering off the coasts—the Royal troops being
wail placed, so far as their numbers enable them to
be, and expecting speedy reinforcements to the ex-
tent already particularised.

While affairs are yet in this intermediate state
there in Sicily—midway, as it were, between the
coming of CIALDINI and the going of CUGlA:—the
heroic leader of this most fatal and mistaken
enterprise has, by a new act of indiscretion, demon-

strated more clearly than ever its rashness and fata-
lity ! Issuing from Catania a proclamation calling
upon the Hungarians to arise and assert their own
independence—GAßlßALDl has already been an-
swered as strongly as can be in the negative by one
of the Chiefs of the Hungarians. General KLAPKA
has put forth a counter-proclamation. Addressing
himself to the Italian Hero, KLAPKA has said, "Your
voice, General GARIBALDI, would have found an
echo if you had uttered the war•cry at the head of
volunteers, united to the Royal troops, in order to
march against the Hapsburg dynasty." The Hun-
garian General contenting him with adding quite
simply—without a word of comment—" Such is not
now the voice of Italy." GARIBALDI can hardly in
reason resent such a response—the odds are, from
first to last, so enormously against him. Insomuch

is (this to the recognition, of us one and all)
clearly and unmistakeably the situation of
affairs nowadays, in respect, on the one
hand to the ambition of GARIBALDI, and on the
other hand to his cabability of realising it—that
the utmost that could well now be hoped for by his

most confiding admirers would be that he would
yet betimes withdraw before it is too late from so
unequal a contest. The enterprise upon which he
has adventured, in the prosecution of which he is
still persisting, has appeared from first to last to
all the truest friends of Italy, nothing less than—
in the fullest meaning of the word—insensate.
One of the smallest of the minor poets in our
literature has, in his poem on " The Spleen," writ-
ten one famous line in which he says (of "The
Spleen")— '
46 Fling but a stone the giant dies."
It is doubly applicable, and with lamentable signifi-
cance, to the actual situation of things just now with
regard to Italy
and
GARIBALDI. Supposing affairs
are allowed, that is, to take their course—and the
unequal forces now confronting each other to come
into lamentable collision. Let GARIBALDI fall by
a bullet from the Royal troops—and, adieu to all
further idea of a kingly and constitutional govern-
ment for Italy under VICTOR EMMANUEL. Let
GARIBALDI evade the vigilance of the Royal forces
now surrounding him, by sea and land in Catania,
let the Hero cross the Straits of Messina into Cala-
bria, let him advance towards Rome, and then upon
the Roman frontiers fall by a bullet from the rifle
of a Frenchman—and the popular phrenzy of the
Italians will be aroused in deadliest earnest
from the gulf of Squillace to the northern
borders of the Valteline, from Ancona to Piom-
bino. The flame lighted would spread like wild-
fire— the conflict would widen. It would
no longer be an II alian war—it would be an Euro-
pean war with Italy for the chief battleground.
In either case there would be anarchy. The work
of Italian emancipation would have to be com-
menced de novo. All is, at this moment, for Italy,
liable to be staked upon the hazard of a die—the
throw being yet at the option of GARIBALDI. Well,
for his own chivalrous reputation, and for the
kingly fortunes of VICTOR EMMANUEL, will it be if
UARIBALDI, yet at the eleventh hour,holds his hands,
and instead of crossing, madly, from Catania into
Calabria, magnanimously withdraws from an Italian
war now threatening to be fratricidal. All resolves
itself really and truly to this—Will GARIBALDI
consent (unintentionally, no doubt, but quite un-
mistakably) to play—as he threatens to do—into the
hands of the French EMPEROR ?

The Free States of the Union can hardly be said
to exist any longer. If representation still remains
when Congress sits, absolutism is triumphant now.
Probably were the Houses sitting the result would
be the same. The administration would not be
called to account for taking the law into its own
hands and acting as Dictator. Certain it is that not
in Russia, nor even in France, is the central power
more irresponsible than in America. We ought,
however, to look beyond that power, we ought to
ask, what makes it a power ? and we believe that in
America, as in the most despotic European Govern-
ments, it is the passive consent, or the active encour-
agement of, the many which does all. Louis NAPO-
LEON and Mr. SEWARD equally conform themselves
to what they know will please the many. What
they do may look like their own act—it is, in truth,
the act of the party which placed them in office.
Louis NAPOLEON feels first the pulse of the army,
the peasantry, and generally of the great party of
the Bonapartists; Mr. SEWARD and the PRESIDENT,
whom he is said to influence, decree nothing which
the Republican party in the North will not counter-
sign. Fairly considered, the despotism of the North is
the despotism of the triumphant party. Tbey call for
vigorous measures—Mr. SEWARD and the Cabinet
are left to devise them. And it matters little, be
it a violation of the inflexible laws of political
economy, or of the legal liberties of individuals, they
are ready to hurrah, if it be but vigorous.

Hence we receive to-day accounts of such vigorous I
proceedings as were Lord PALMERSTON to attempt
them, even under parallel circumstances, would
drive him quickly from office without any coalition ,
between Manchester, the POPE'S Brigade, and Mr. I
DISRAELI. The letters tell us of a perfect burly-
burly of all the section of society of age to be drawn I
for the war. All the men between eighteen and
forty-five, seem to think of nothing but the fron-
tiers Or the deck of a steamer. It would seem that
Mr. AR _
E. became aware of the commencing
exodus just
in time to stop it midway. Numbers,
we learn from
Canadian papers, had already got
across Lake Ontario, and were safe at Toronto, but
the
for
tuhneli ur
cpkays spa g passengers e
by the
who had by hundreds paid
Etna and Saxonia, which
were then ready to sail, Wet© suddenly pulled up
by telegraphic order from Mr. SEWARD. Not one
of them was to be allowed.to sail
without a pass-
port. The police,
we are told, behaved
with becom-
ing official gravity, still they were firm ; but the
mob below and the mob above the military age,
were highly delighted with this proof of the vigour
of Government. It did not hurt them, and they
chaffed and ridiculed to their hearts' content those
who lost their passage-money, n d their temper
with it. The natives of the Green Isle were irritated
exceedingly that their nationality and British
allegiance should be doubted now. They
were free British citizens who had come to an en-
lightened and free Republic, to find themselves
as hampered as they would have been in Austria
or Russia ; this was something more than they
had bargained for. However, there was no help
for it. Oat of a thousand persons who during the
day obtained certificates that they were British
subjects, mostly Irish, two hundred had paid their
passage by the steamers which left them behind !
As the order arrived subsequently to their payment,
We trust Mr. SEWA.RD will, at least, indemnify them
for the loss in such money as a British steamer