The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-27 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OE THE TIMES.

Sir,—A letter from " X." in your impression of
this day has caused me some little surprise. He
seems horrified at the intelligence that some of the
funds intended for Garibaldi's assistance have fallen
into the hands of Mazzini. He seems to deem it a
shocking thing to help Mazzini, but a virtuous
action to supply Garibaldi. To me the public mo-
rality of the one seems to differ little from that of
the other. Of their private character I know
nothing. Their public acts have this difference—
the one has been unfortunate, the other successful.
But the public morality evinced by each of them is
much on a par. It is, no doubt, a matter for re-
joicing that the people of the Two Sicilies should
have been freed from a galling tyranny (if such
they really suffered), but yet Garibaldi's conduct in
freeing them does not seem the less immoral. Grant
that he is a brave, and honest, and generous man.
He then is worthy of admiration for these virtues,
and perhaps for other good qualities also. But yet
his public acts, I think, are not the less reprehensible.
If a subject were to raise a rebellion against his law-
ful Sovereign, would you, sir, defend his conduct or
argue that the doom of death were not his due ? He
might be rising against his King's oppressive rule ;
but still you would not applaud the rebel acts. And
if a man killed the despot who tyrannised over his
country, would you not brand the regicide as a
murderer, even while you congratulated the
nation on being freed from tyranny ? But is it not
a hundredfold worse for a man of another nation
(be he Savoyard or Frenchman) to raise a rebellion
in a friendly State and shoot down the soldiers who
observe their oath and defend their lawful Sove-
reign ?
If Napoleon were to publish a pamphlet to com-
miserate the Irish on the score that they are
oppressed and that their religion is not respected,
and were then to invade and conquer that country
(which he would call "freeing an oppressed
nationality") without having made any previous
declaration of war, would you not condemn him
in the most powerful of philippics? But would it
not be far worse for a private individual—
M'Mahon for instance—to raise a rebellion in
Ireland while France remained at peace with us ?
And if France supplied him with money, arms and
ammunition, would you not lavish the most oppro-
brious epithets both upon the marauder and on the
perfidious country which gave him countenance
and assistance ?

Let us not excuse ourselves on the ground that
Naples was oppressed while Ireland is free. This
is merely a veil to blind our moral sense. We
have read in the newspapers that Naples was
oppressed. That is all we know about it. M'Mahon
might have read in a certain pamphlet that Ireland
is oppressed and that the exercise of the religion of
the Irish is restricted, and he may entertain an
opinion that such is really the case. How would
the objection then apply ? But even if we were
to grant the substance of this objection ; yet if a
man who did not suffer from the oppression which
we allow to have existed—who was not connected
with the country which he invaded, and whose
Sovereign and people were at peace with the State
which he overturned—l say that the act of such a
man is no better than the act of a Filibuster,
murderer, and cutthroat adventurer. By these
terms he would have been designated, and people
would have welcomed for him the fate which was
adjudged to Walker for the same offence, had not
success palliated his trespass and gilded his crime.
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
ROBERT MONTAGU, M.P.
72, Inverness-terrace, Nov. 21.

The name of Garibaldi has been heard far and
wide through these islands. With small resources
in men and money he has accomplished a great
enterprise, and, although motives of policy have
forbidden our Government to assist him, private
liberality could not be prevented from supplying
the deficiency. But just in proportion as the name
of Garibaldi is popular in these islands the name of
Mazzini is odious, The cause and the man are
alike hateful to Englishmen. There is no country,
in the world which has less taste for the Red Re-
public than England, and there is no character in
the world less calculated to win our approbation
than that of a conspirator who is for ever plotting
in public, and sending forth braver men than him-
self to destruction, in order to keep before Europe
the memory of a worthless cause. Money, however,
has been collected ostensibly for the use of Garibaldi
and the unity of Italy, which has been applied for
the purposes of Mazzini and the Red Republic. It
is a very commonplace case of misappropriation,
and that is all that we should have thought it
necessary to say about it. Far different, however,
is the impression which this transaction makes
upon the mind of Lord Robert Montagu. In a
letter which will be found in another column Lord
Robert Montagu endeavours to show that this
misappropriation is entirely innocent. Weighed
in the scale of public morality, our correspondent
can find nothing to reprehend in the application of
money to one purpose which was subscribed for
another. There is no harm in applying money
subscribed for Garibaldi to the purposes of Mazzini,
because Garibaldi is, in Lord Montagu's opinion,
not a whit better than Mazzini. In other words,
I am at liberty to deprive A of his property and
give it to B, if I can persuade myself that B would
not be likely to make a worse use of it than A.
This is Lord R. Montagu's idea of public morality.
Fraud is not fraudulent and deceit is not deceitful
unless you happen to think the person defrauded
and deceived better than the person who pro-
fits by the defraud and deceit. Lord Robert Mon-
tagu doubts whether the people of Naples have
really suffered under a galling tyranny; but Gari-
baldi s conduct in freeing them from that tyranny
is, he thinks, nevertheless immoral. It is a good
thing, but it ought never to have been done. If
he had been a subject who had rebelled against his
lawful sovereign, Lord Robert assumes, as too evi-
dent for contradiction, that his conduct could not
be defended, and that death was his proper punish-
ment, however oppressive his sovereign might be.
This being assumed, Lord Robert infers that it
must be a hundred times worse for a man of
another nation to levy war against a lawful
re the
M'Mahon English
were pre
sove-
reign. If the Emperor Napoleon were to invade
I
toss wouldattack clroenldaenrad, nwhiitmh him. If
Marshalland,
countenance and assistance of France, it would be
still more wicked. From which things it follows
that Garibaldi is a filibuster, a murderer, and a
catthroat adventurer, and if we had not been
misled by his success we should have hailed his
punishment with the same satisfaction that has
attended the punishment of filibuster Walker.
We have stated the substance of this letter be-
cause it is the last of the kind which we probably
shall ever have to print, and involves indeed a most
striking anachronism. Here is a young nobleman,
and a member of Parliament to boot, announcing
known 200 years ago under the
with
compendious name of "the divine right of kings."
all
thatthe emphasis of a new discovery the doc-
trine was
Just after Russia has disowned a peremptory and
pedantic adherence to the principle of legitimacy,
and 170 years after that principle has been practi-
cally discarded in this country, we are called upon
to admit it as self-evident and assume it as the
basis of our reasonings. Whence does Lord Robt.
Montagu derive the assumption that it is immoral