The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-23 00:00:00

SICILY.

RUMOURED DEFEAT OF THE NEAPO-
LITANS.

We have received official accounts published by
the Provisional Government of Sicily of the fall of
Catania.

The Saggiatore of Turin, of the 17th, gives the
following telegraphic dispatches, the latter of which
bears the date of the 9th, published at Palermo,
and signed GAXTANO CATALANO, Minister of the
Interior :

" The Commissary of the Executive Power of Castro•
reale to the Minister of War and Marine:—Many per-
sons of the vicinity, besides those I have expressly sent,
confirm the intelligence that Catania fell into the hands
of the Royalists on the 6th. From Castroreale this day
at fourteen o'clock (half-past nine A m.):—As the Go-
vernment is firmly convinced that nothing is to be con
cealed from the people, it adds to the dispatches hitherto
published the following dispatch it has just received;
not that the people should blindly believe it, but that the
people may know all that is known to Government."
" The Commissary-General of Castroreale to the
Minister of War and Marine, and to all the authorities:
—The rumours that had been spread have been proved
false by intelligence received directly from the environs
of Catania. Yesterday, at half-past fourteen o'clock (ten
A.m.) there was fighting in that town. Outside of the
tows► a general action has taken place, and our troops
fought with advantage. From the telegraph of Cas-
troreale, this day, twelve o'clock (half-past seven, A.m.)."
The following is from the Genoa Gazette of the
16th :

" The steamer Sully, arrived this morning from
Palermo and Leghorn, announces that the Neapolitans,
who had already occupied Catania, have been obliged to
retire, the Sicilians having been reinforced by a French
legion."

This intelligence of the retaking of Catania by the
Sicilians is further confirmed by the following intel-
ligence brought to Genoa by the French steamer
Bosphore, and published in the Corriere Mercantile
of the 16th:—

" The inhabitants of Catania had opened their gates
to the Neapolitans, who began to pillage the town.
Upon which the people rose, and, aided by a body of
regular troops, massacred the Neapolitans. The tele-
graphic dispatch that had conveyed this news to Palermo
at the moment of the departure of the Bosphore, added,
that the royal army, 12,000 strong, was surrounded by
the Sicilians, and in a desperate condition. The batteries
of Catania hasl sunk a Neapolitan steamer, and severely
damaged other ships."

It will be recollected that the Neapolitans stormed
Catania from the land side, therefore it is
probable that the coast batteries may have
remained in the hands of the Sicilians ; and that
an attack upon the Neapolitans was intended
is evident trom the dispatch of the chief of the execu-
tive of the valley of Catania to the Government at
Palermo, dated Regalbuto, 7th of April, in which he
states that General MIEROSLAWSAI had retired to
that town with the garrison of Catania, where he was
being reinforced by the National Guards of the in-
terior towns, and by the armed peasantry, and as
Regalbuto is but twenty-five miles from Catania,
MIEROSLAWSKI probably has found himself suffi-
ciently strong to advance and expel the Neapolitan
garrison from that place. The Neapolitans had not
arrived in Syracuse on the 10th.