The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-19 00:00:00

•
that of humanity, and he disdained to contaminate the
purity of his motive by receiving riches or rewards for his
-services, and he. lived always in the greatest poverty.
In 1847 he returned to Italy. His deeds at Rome are
well known. When the siege of Rome was over, and the
city taken posseesion of by the French, he collected about
4,000 of its defenders, and made a rash attempt to cross
Italy to the Adriatic, thus hoping to make his way by I
sea to Venice, where the last ray of Italian liberty still
lingered. He was quickly surrounded with Austrian
troops from Florence, Bologna, and Ancona, and he
reached with difficulty, with a portion of his force, the
little republic of San Marino • here 900 men gave up their
arms to the authorities of the republic, who, as authori-
ties of an independent state, proposed to make terms for
them with the Austrians. They were, however, made
prisoners, and sent to Mantua, many of them first being
ignominiously flogged. Garibaldi and about 300 compa-
nions reached the shore, and embarking during the night
on board some fishing boats made sail towards Venice ; as
morning dawned the wind fell, and two Austrian steamers
were in sight. Some boats were taken, others sunk, and
two only, I believe, reached the shore near Rimini ; in one
of these were Garibaldi and his wife, a lady of the Brazils,
who had insisted on accompanying her husband on his re-
treat from Rome. Garibaldi and his companions imme-
diately separated themselves, as the only chance of escape,
and carrying his wife in his arms, who was unable to sup-
port herself from fatigue, left the shore and went inland.
Two days afterwards he appeared at the cottage of a pea-
sant, still carrying his wife, and asked for water to be
given to her, but she expired as he put it to her lips. His
companions were hunted about, and most of them shot
down like beasts of chase. Two months later Garibaldi
arrived at Genoa, having passed through the midst of the
Austrian forces in various disguises, and he who had
always refused to enrich himself by war, who disdained
self-interest, and defied all perils in devotion to a noble
cause, now thinks it no dishonour to earn his living as the
captain of a merchant vessel trading between China and
America. He has been called a brigand and a leader of
Condottieri ; but let those who reflect compare Garibaldi
with the French and Austrian generals whom he fought
against in Italy. Among the companions of Garibaldi
Who were made prisoners was a priest named Ugo Bassi,
who had distinguished himself during the siege of Rome
by riding unarmed among the combatants, consoling and
assisting the dying and wounded. He was sent to Bo-
logna, where, by order of the Papal authorities, he had
the skin peeled from the crown of his head and from the
thumb and two first fingers of his right hand, and, when
this Christian-like ceremony was performed—which was
considered to remove his priesthood—he was turned over
to the Austrians to be shot !

Such was the fate of the remnant of that brave army of
volunteers which had defended Rome, composed of men
from all ranks of life, in which the nobleman, the peasant,
and youths who had left the peaceful study of professions
and the arts, fought side by side, united in love for their
country; their courage had been wasted and their force
consumed in resisting France, at a moment when most
needed against the Austrians. The Austrian power in
Lombardy rested on a volcano ready to burst beneath her
feet ; the battle of Novara, so suddenly and decisively won,
checked its explosion, but it still existed, and such a re-
sistanc© to the Austrian forces as the French encountered
at Rome might at that moment have influenced the fate of
Italy. And these defenders of Rome have been calumniated
as a band of desperadoes, of soldiers of adventure, of anar-
chists, and revolutionists of all nations! In vain the French
envoy, Lesseps, wrote to his Government the unwelcome
truth, that Rome was defended chiefly by those classes
which in Paris defend the cause of order ; he was unheeded
in the necessity which the French Government was under
of justifying the siege by any means, and imputing it to
any motive but the true one. The death of Rossi—the
act of a single man—was paraded as the crime of a whole
people. The man who had come forward almost alone to
support by his talent and reputs,tion the Papal Govern-
ment in its now open hostility to Italian freedom, who
had not an ally, who would hardly have found a gendarme
to obey him, who stood alone opposed to a whole city,
whose power must have fallen of itself in a few days, did
more harm to the Romans by his death than he could have
done while living. The republic was said to have been
founded on an assassination and unworthy to exist, and
2,000 Italians died at Rome to defend it. In France the
lower and middling classes had learnt to distrust each
other; the violence of the Socialists produced a reaction,
a retrograde spirit, and Italy suffered for this. Its results
were the re-establishment of the Papal authority and the
present despotism in France.
Should a day of deliverance ever arrive for Italy, it is
difficult to foretell what effect it may have upon the
Roman Catholic Church. The temporal power of the
Popes being wrested frcm them ; their spiritual power
would be used without moderation or remorse to recover
it, as it is now used for its defence ; hence must arise a re-
sistance, an opposition to the spiritual power also.
That revolutions, that political convulsions generally,
retard at the time the progress of civilisation, may be true,
yet are they often necessary to freedom. England has
passed through civil war and revolutions in her struggle
to obtain it, and it is undeniably true that in Italy revo-
lution is the only road to freedom, the only means of civi-
lisation. I have endeavoured to show that the cause of
Italian'freedom Is emphatically that of civilisation struggling
against barbarism, of intelligence against ignorance and
superstition.
Italian insurrection has been condemned also as disturb-
ing the peace of Europe ; the crime is theirs who render
this insurrection just and necessary. If the Peace Society,
instead of condemning indiscriminately all war, would de-
fine and distinguish that which is defensive and that which
is aggressive, that which is the slave escaping from his
tyrant, the citizen defending his family and his home from
the robber and the murderer, and that which is but mur-
der and robbery on a large scale, they might arrive at a
result of moro practical llay. If ever the great moral
principle, "Do unto others as you would they should do
unto you," shall guide the intercourse of nations, there will
be universal peace, and not before ; but something might,
no doubt, be done by an earnest propagandism of political
morality, and by disseminating a knowledge of its princi-
ples. There are many men who would never be led by
self-interest to commit an act of oppression or injustice
towards a neighbour who would yet applaud a conquest
by which their country has acquired increased power or
territory, because they have never thought to view these
questions in the great moral light of the welfare of man-
kind, but only in the restricted sense of their country's
glory or advantage.

The remarks I have made in this letter, though applying
generally to Italy, with the exception of Piedmont, have
been suggested more particularly by the state of the Papal
dominions and government, and my remarks on the priest-
hood are not meant to extend at a5ll beyond Italy. I have
spoken only of what I know, and I can easily conceive that
to the Englist Roman Catholic his religion presents itself
under alvery different aspect from that which it is mado
to assume to the Italian peasant. If I have expressed
contempt, it is not meant for the religion itself, as under-
stood by the intelligent and educated Roman Catholic,
but for the adoption of deceit and such vile means as
these pretended miracles to obtain power and influence
over the ignorant, and for the endeavour to keep the
ignorant as they are, that such means may influence
them.

My object in writing these two letters has been obtained
if they have done anything towards creating a sympathy
for a cause which I feel convinced is noble and just, and.
towards preventing the unhappy acts of revenge and as-
sassination (the effect of the demoralisation produced by
oppression) which have taken place, and still sometimes
occur in Italy, from being identified with the cause itself,
with its justice and its hopes.—l have the honour to be,
sir, your obedient servant,

A TRAVELLER IN ITALY.

Decombor 6.

OPENING OF A WINTER GARDEN IN DUBLIN.--OR
Thursday the Irish Exhibition was upened as a winter
garden and promenade. At about two o'clock their
Excellencies the Lord-Lieutenant and the Countess of
St. Germans, attended by Major Ponsonby, private
secretary, and the Hon. Captain Hely Hutchinson,
A.D.C. in waiting, arrived at the front of the building
in Merrion-square, where they were received by the
Lord Mayor, Mr. Alderman Roe, D.L. and Chairman
of the Committee ; Sir Edward M'Donnell, the Lord
Mayor Elect ; Colonel Browne, Mr. Dargan, and other
members of the committee ; and conducted by those
gentlemen, their Excellencies walked up the south side
of the great hall to the angle of ascent to the circular
dais, which was lately ornamented with statuary. The
National Anthem was struck up by six military bands
at the moment their Excellencies entered the build-
ing, and was continued until they reached the extreme
end of the hall, which at that time presented a very
animated and imposing spectacle. The great hall and
the galleries all around were filled with an over-
flowing and „fashionable assemblage. Their Excel-
lencies proceeded across to the northern side of the
hall, and paced about through the building for
a considerable' time • after which the carriages
were ordered, and the Viceregal party drove back
to the Viceregal Lodge. The equestrian statue of the
Queen and many other works of art adorn the great
central hall. Tho fountains are in active play at inter-
vals ; clumps of evergreens and choice exotics from the
conservatories of the nobility and gentry are gracefully
towering in conical forms, whilst the gallery where the
great organ had been erected is elegantly festooned and
ornamented with shrubs. It was estimated that there
were considerably over five thousand visitors present.
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