The Sun.
London, England, 1862-09-01 00:00:00

17.
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THE SUN.

LONDON, MONDAY, SEPT. 1, 1862.

It is impossible not to experience a certain sense
of relief at the verification of the news published in
our columns early on Saturday evening, to the effect
that the insurrectionary movement of the Garibal-
dians in Southern Italy has been actually termi-
nated. It is equally impossible to exult—as some
soi-disant Friends of the Popular Cause in Italy are
apparently inclined to—over the melancholy down-
fall of GARIBALDI, now Wounded and a Prisoner in
the hands of his fellow-countrymen. It appeared
from the first almost incomprehensible that so great
a man as this could blunder so egregiously.

" Who would not grieve if such a man there be—
Who would not weep if ATTICUS were he ?"

The lamentable story, however, is now complete.
After in some measure rivalling for a while his
his marvellous exploits when, in 1860, the Hero
of Caprera first traversed Italy with his red-
shirts, crossing those same straits of Messina
to Melito, on the extreme southern coast of
CaIabria—GARIBALDI, having been driven to bay,
has been as the telegram told us on Saturday
afternoon, Defeated, Wounded, and Captured.
Confronted, though his little band of Volunteers
was known to be, when they set forth on this mad
and audacious enterprise, by the extravagant odds of
Three Great Armies, ready, each of them, to appear
overwhelmingly before GARIBALDI and his followers
in battle array—the Italian army, the French army,
awl the Austrian army—the course taken by the
Great Rebel Chief from the date of his quitting his
encampment at Corleone, absolutely seemed to give
promise of a renewal for a while of his former good
fortune, and the addition to the wondrous record
of his history of some of his old astounding
achievements. Gathering about him a band
of volunteers, but poorly clad and but par-
tially armed—GARIBALDI was known to have
passed unmolested from one end of the island
of Sicily to the other. It was notorious that in
defiance of the Royal proclamation, he still carried
his insurrectionary banner onwards. That in despite
of the Royal forces he entered and took possession
of Catania. That laughing to scorn, as it were, the
war-vessels of the KING then blockading the coast
for the express purpose of preventing his departure
from Catania to Calabria, GARIBALDI had coolly
crossed over, and landed at Melito—just es he had
done before, only two years ago, at the time of his
last exploits. That Royal army, 25,000 strong, the
liege soldiers of VICTOR EMMANUEL, King of
Italy, had been no more serious obstacle to
GARIBALDI, a few days ago in Sicily while
traversing the island directly from end to end,
than the Royal army of
about the same
number that a little more than two summers
back had garrisoned that same island in
the name and under the standard
of FRANCIS
11., King of the Two Sicilies! Even those
who recognised the most clearly that GARIBALDI'S
failure was eventually a thing quite inevitable,
could not—on beholding the new:explcits thus done
in his name (even now we ought rather to say
by his name), could not possibly do otherwise
than speculate as to the chances of the Hero hold-
ing out there in Calabria, for an interval, even in
spite of the stupendous odds martialled against him
in all the northern parts of the peninsula.
Tidings came next of his having set out from
Melito in the direction of Reggio. The intelligence
that followed acquainted us with the fact that the
advance guard of the little Garibaldian band of
Volunteers, had on two successive days had a brush
with the Royal troops sent out against them from
Reggio by General REVEL, then holding the chief
military command there in the name of VICTOR
EMMANUEL. Upon both these occasions, though not
a man was killed upon either side (several however
being more or less seriously wounded)—the dis-
comfiture of the Royal Forces was so unmistake-
able that their daring leader was known to
have determined upon diverging from the
the path originally taken by him leading towards
Reggio; to have had pushed onward to the moun-
tain inland height known—henceforth destined to
be lamentably famous in history as the scene of the
Downfall of GARIBALDI—as Aspramonte!
There, at Aspramonte, General GARIBALDI, at
the head of 2,000 undisciplined Volunteers, was, ,