The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-25 00:00:00

GARIBALDI'S DIFFICULTY.

There is an unpleasing coincidence in the accounts
which come to us from Italy. We have, indeed,
tidings of the most glorious successes, of victories
gained in the field, of frightened foes fleeing
before the patriot bands, and of cravens courting
captivity to avoid a fight. The Irish bravoes of
the' Church, who went forth hoping only to have
to trample down a poor peasantry, have been seen
cowering beneath the swords of an insurgent people.
Everything is satisfactory, except only the in-
cessantly-repeated testimony that discord has crept
up under the cover of all this sueeegs. We turn
in vain from side to side to find some reason to
discredit this unwelcome tale. We dwell upon
the three great public facts that Garibaldi has
handed over the Neapolitan fleet to the King of
Sardinia, that he has proclaimed the laws of Sar-
dinia throughout his new conquests, and that he
has performed public acts of State in the name of
Victor Emmanuel. All these favourable facts are,
however, weakened or explained away by these
who are closely observing what passes in Italy.
Even Mr. Edwin James, who went out certainly
dweistellnboesthe
design to depreciate the great man whom
we
.have believed in as a second Washington, now
actionary, the Wreoaapdoslistawnasrmasindgiswcoitnhtebnatendditatfii,dre
the
proclamations of Garibaldi as causing the deepest
disappointment to all the friends
of Italy, and the
Dictator himself as surrounded and influenced by
those who do not hesitate to express their wish for
the proclamation of a Republic. We can under-
stand that Mr. Edwin Tames may not be very deep
in Garibaldi's confidence, but other accounts con-
cur. The Debats throws doubts upon the contra-
' diction given at Turin to the correspondence be-
tween Garibaldi and the King; other reports fortify
Mr. Edwin James's rather indiscreet revelations as
to the freedom with which the Dictator habitually
speaks of the Emperor of the French ; and the
friends of constitutional monarchy in Italy are
saying, in sorrow and consternation, that the country
conquered from the Bourbons will have to be re-
conquered from Garibaldi. Men of all shades and
principles favourable to freedom are lamenting that
Garibaldi has fallen into bad hands.
If this be so—and we have waited in vain for
something which may explain or contradict these
bad tidings—then Italy was never in more immi-
nent danger than she is at this moment. We may
hope that the check just received before Capua is
only a partial and temporary repulse, and that the
proclamation which states his intention to join the
Sardinian troops at Rome, and then to march upon
Venice, is rather intended to conceal than to indi-
cate his future movements. But neither of these
items of intelligence is reassuring upon the points
that cause the greatest uneasiness to the friends of
Italy. If future telegrams shall serve only to
deepen the assurance that the Revolution has en-
tered upon a new phase, and a phase of unhappy
complexion, then it is but too probable that the
event for which the enemies of the Italians have
been so long watching, and which they have been
disappointed to find so long delayed, is at hand.
According to the present appearances, the leaders
of Italy are quarrelling among themselves, and the
Revolution threatens to flow no longer between the
banks of law and order. Garibaldi, whose very ex-
ceptional position with respect to the law of nations
was excused, and even sanctified, by the greatness
of his views and the grandness of his contempt for
personal partialities or personal hatreds, has stooped
a little from his pride of place, and has given signs
of swerving towards a party. The recent acts of
the great Italian chief have been to surround him-
self with men who are the avowed enemies of that
constitutional form of government the armed
apostle of which Garibaldi has hitherto been, and
to distribute all the posts which fortune and
his own great qualities have placed at his command
among the avowed advocates of a Republican form
of government. We fear, too, that, notwithstand-
ing the official denial, it is but too true that he has
advanced pretensions to control the actions of the
King to whom he has always professed allegiance,
and has put forth those pretensions in a manner so
offensive that, coupled with his Republican en-
tourage, it seems doubtful how far Victor Emma-
nuel retains the conqueror of Sicily and Naples as
a subject. _

It Is not for us, nor for Europe, looking on in
sorrow at this critical position of so great a cause,
to poise the merits of the two parties, and to say
who is right and who is wrong. Garibaldi, doubt-
less, has had his slights and his ill-treatment ; but
the man cannot be right who takes occasion to
avenge himself at such a time as this, or who weighs
slights and ill-treatment when the fate of his coun-
try is trembling in the balance. Even if Garibaldi
had done his work, had gathered all the fragments
of Old Italy tcfgether, and had cemented them into
one kingdom, he could not make such demands upon
Vietor Emmanuel as he is now doing, without for-
feiting the character for unselfish patriotism which
had made his name so dear throughout Europe.
But, so far from having consolidated his con-
quest, his successes are at present little more
substantial in their character than the confla-
gration which rushes along the American
prairie. A Revolution which does but destroy
is only the parent of violent reaction. But it
does not appear that hitherto Garibaldi has
erected anything permanent in place of what he
has pulled down. The accounts from Sicily insist
that anarchy reigns in that island. The reports
from Naples testify to a complete administrative
disorder. There is a disbanded army scattered over
the country, requiring careful watching, yet it does
not appear that any steps have yet been taken to
protect the industry and property of the land from
the natural consequences of turning loose those
wandering bands of necessitous men. The intoxi-
cation of a mere political success will pass away, but
the absence of law and order would be found in-
tolerable. If industry and property should be long
insecure, the popularity of Garibaldi and the exul-
tation of the free Italians must soon be at an end.

path.
Garibaldi is possessed of great power, but he is
To
powerful wer
unitef ' nl
Italyonl y sointo
ltoon
ognaes
kingdomhe travels
aianatehr el rightVictor
Em-
manuel is a work in which he can
of the Mazzini pattern Garibaldi is a Italian
glorious part. But to establish an Pplay
the beggar who sits upon the steps osfSt
In these moments of enthusiasm a leader'st
powerer
iss
.
probably very much over-estimated, both yliim-
self and by others. With all respect for popular
enthusiasm, enthusiasm, the revolutionary movements in the
South of Italy have yet 1 o be tried by any real
test. There has been no opposition. The Neapolitan
soldiers would not fight. Even the army which Gari-
baldi has brought across to Naples is said to have
excited more astonishment than admiration in the
minds of the Neapolitans. He now- desires the
King of Sardinia to supply their places with
30,000 soldiers, while he leads his own followers
whether
the Peninsula. Up to this moment there is nothing
northward, in order to complete the con
in the achievements of these levies to justify us in
believing that they would stand even the first brunt
French or Austrian. We have no example
of a collision with a disciplined army,
success of guerilla troops in such a of the
contest, even
when the forces have been in some decree equal ;
but what the result must be of a battle between this
handful of hardy guerillas, 'with
their following of
Sicilians, and such an army
Austria could place in the field as either France or
require no seer to foretell. against them, would
three weeks to destroy
insurrection, and every vestige of the Spanish
when we afterwards came to
revive it we kno\ wi,
What, then, can
view troublesome and useless an
ally we found it. It took Itadetzky about the same
time to trample out impotentqula,ee Republic
overya,, s
ethaisa
allr atmNeaoi\i'apra.
hol the Lombard insurrection and
to wind up the w
'What means
the appearance ' of
establishment
ofl‘l,llaazzzziinaii, at Naples? What the
co eague in Sicily ?
emissary. of the same
detestable creel to London P
What this peremptory

tone to the King of Sardinia ? What this presscrip-
tion of the statesman who has really done all that
was done to initiate this progress towards Italian
unity ? Are we about to be compelled to abandon
all our hopes just at the moment of fruition ? Are
we reluctantly to believe that the doom of slavery
which has so long hung over that fair country
which once lorded it so haughtily over the world,
is not yet reversed, and that the time has not
yet come when Italy can give birth to men
who have virtue enough to sink their own passions,
jealousies, and ambitions, or even to restrain them
until they have succeeded in effecting their coun-
try's liberation ? The crisis is still pending, and
it is a great crisis for Italy and a great crisis for
Garibaldi. We do hope he will not allow himself
to be deluded by the political Thugs who have got,
about him. The Mazzinis and Crispis have vocooal
either in Italy or in Europe ; and
if tleLtira ye
Garibaldi to believe the contrary, they WIIII.
not only Garibaldi, butltaly, to perdition.
not yet yield to these evil tidingrso;ni
these fatal
Garibaldi will yet break away
from
may now take
counsellors. But upon the courseer future genera-
tionstha that o
will depend the alternative whether
el
baes
f
their national hero, or whether
fanatical soldier who
remem-
bered only as a gallant
of Italians will veneratheerhishenwamil
freedom.-7ilies•
refused for Italy the fairest offer she ever had of

well
for his ric°u.S7nincgit yanodifiNcviett.
WIT.
—ate Ad.
and carried her to the family burying place in the High •
His mother having died in Edinburgh, he hired a hearse
He returned, it is said, with the hoarse full of
and being teased about it by a friend,
re'usagigdi—cd'.;hViosuke,ym, man, there's nao harm done. I only took
the body and bought but tl4? Ppeerit."
in ACur:l7lll4eeGkieA.wN aps