The Sun.
London, England, 1862-09-15 00:00:00

GARIBALDI AND MONTE VIDEO:

Lately discussing the probabilities of Garibaldi's
disposal, the leading journal remarked that, as be
was almost as much at home in Monte Video as in
Italy, he should return thither, and pass the decline
of his life iu a sphere to whose welfare he had con-
secrated so much of his prime. Should circum-
stances render desirable the adoption of this sug-
gestion, the victor of the Volturno would find in the
.
fair region of the River Plate splendid evidence of
the effects of the freedom he there helped to win ;
and the material advancement of Monte Video since
the expulsion of the sanguinary and obscurantist
Rosas, the Bomba of the Pampas, may be accepted
as a sure augury of the progress that awaits Sicily
and Naples when relieved for a like period from the
incubi that blinded the national vision and stifled
the popular will. A large number of Garibaldi's
countrymen are settled in the now flourishing, but
then desolated, Monte Videan territory, where their
industry, temperance, and frugality convert to the
best account the numerous advantages of the place,
whose principal trade, next to that with England,
is carried on with Italy, and is rapidly increasing.
Filled with instances of daring and self-sacrifice as
has been the whole career of the hero, there
is no portion of it so much so, though none
so little known, as that spent in defending
Monte Video, against overwhelming odds,
during the time Sir W. Gore Ouseley was British.
Minister there, who has repeatedly borne verbal
testimony to what he was a familiar eye-witness of,
namely, not only Garibaldi's cheerful endurance
himself under all manner of privations, but his
power of imbuing others with the same feeling;—
shaming the apathetic, rebuking the lukewarm, and
leading the zealous with a prescient discretion only
equalled by the ardour that enveloped it, and in-
spiring all with a conviction of the invincibility of
his fortunes. It was within the long-beleaguered
lines of famished Monte Video he first exhibited the
extraordinary tactical adroitness afterwards deve-
loped against more skilled, as well as more boastful,
but certainly not more dashing, assailants at Rome,
viz., handling half-civilian and semi-disciplined
levies in presence of regular troops, who had all
the materiel of war, and were in command of the
open country and its supplies, as well as direct water
communication with their base of operations. More-
' over, they wielded the most formidable of weapons,
the false pretence that they were making war for a
righteous idea ;—a despot using the soldiery and
resources of a mock republic to destroy a real one,
and all in the name of liberty, equality, and fra-
ternity, subsequently masquerading under the
guise of law and order. If ever man fought for
love of freedom in the abstract, pure and
simple, it was Garibaldi at Monte Video.
Not only did he get no end of knocks, and no
" half-pence," but he received small courtesy and
less thanks from the very men upon whose shoul-
ders his valour kept their heads ; for every one of
those officials would have been put to death—the
most shocking death, that of the Mashorca (a name-
less torture invented by Roses' brigands)—had the
place been stormed by the ferocious Oribe, as it was
repeatedly about being, but for Garibaldi. Keep-
ing aloof from all internecine broils and intrigues,
he abided exclusively in the camp; multiplying
himself, as it were, at every point of danger; under-
going incredible hardships, without a murmur ;
content to hold the foe at bay with his handful, of
faithful Italians, and those natives whom their
example animated to like action. Though the call
of his country compelled him to return to Europe
ere he witnessed the consummation of the work he
was engaged in, he had the satisfaction of knowing
that he ensured it. He would now, were he to re-
turn, have the double satisfaction of beholding a
land abounding in blessings undreamt of during
the tyranny he struck at in its strength, and when
wise men said it was madness to do so; as the still
wiser in their generation said of a later stroke by
the same hand, obedient to the impulses of the
same heart, and directed by the same head ; seldom
in error, save when it hearkens to the " dicers'
oaths" of Cabinet schemers, and credits the prover-
bial perjury of princes.—Liverpool