The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-23 00:00:00

The consequence of this was that half the men were taken
ill the next day, and two days afterwards they were half-
starved. On our remonstrating, General Vaile, a good

and kind man—answered he could do nothing, for food
nner straw were wanting is the place. Such was, and. still
is, the condition in which are kept prisoners of war, who
fought like lions. Such is the treatment of soldiers who
were always kind to the Neapolitan prisoners taken in
Sicily and Calabria.
On my arrival at Gaeta I began to protest against my
imprisonment. I had been taken as a simple spectator; I
did not hold any commission in Garibaldi's art.y; I was
an English subject, and I asked to be allowed to write to
my minister at Naples. Gen. Viale. and Gen. Ferrari
seemed to recognise that I could only be considered as a
mere spectator; but having applied to the King, who had

taken the same view of my case and that of my colleague,
the ministers were consulted, and they all decided against
me. I was, however, told that I could write to Mr. Elliot,
and I did so ; but, as I discovered on my arriving at Naples
my letters were not forwarded. Two days passed away,
and I was taken ill. All my money had been taken from
me by the Neapolitans who had arrested me at Sant An-
gelo, and the scanty allowance of the prison was not enough
to support me. On the fifth day I was attacked by fever.
My illness seemed to increase my courage, and I asked to
be brought into the presence of the general. I wrote to
him a sort of statement, which he promised to present to
the King. From the convict who served us I heard one

morning that I was suspected to be a Muratist agent ; an-
other fellow-prisoner told me that he had heard a captain
say that I was sent by Lord Palmerston to Garibaldi in
order to try to get Sicily for England. At any other time
I should have heartily laughed at this stupid nonsense. On
Wednesday morning I was suddenly summoned before
Gen. Viale. Although ill I went down, and, arrived in his
presence, the general handed to me a Journal des Debats,
in which my name was mentioned together with that of
the Hon. Evelyn Ashley and that of another English
gentleman I now forget. The general told me that the article
in question proved plainly that I had led the soldiers of
Garibaldi on the 10th of September. I pointed out that the
article was anonymous, and I wrote a letter in which I said
that I had never led soldiers, neither on that day nor on any
other, since 1818. I also protested against my captivity,
and told him that I had a firm faith in my Government';
that it would make the dignity of the British nation re-
spected inmy case, as it had done inthe case of the Cagliari.
Next day passed away without any new incident, but on
Friday I was suddenly summoned anew to*the presence of
General Viale, where I met a Signor Materasso, our agent
at Gaeta. This gentleman had not been idle. On hearing
that an English subject was amongst the prisoners he had
sent word to Mr. Elliot, who had claimed me. A council of
ministers had been summoned to consider my case more
fully, and my liberation had been decided. I was asked to
write a declaration that I would not carry my arms against
Francis 11. This done, I was handed over to the consul,
who took me to his house, treated me in the kindest manner,
sent for the doctor, and cared for me as for one of his family.
Yesterday morning the French man-of-war Muette came
into harbour. Signor Materasso asked the captain to take
me to Naples, and yesterday evening I al rived there, whero
I was greeted by my friends as ono risen from the tomb.
Here I must stop. I have already written too much,
about my personal adventures, and I beg your readers to
pardon me if I have dwelt too much on a theme which can
have so little interest for them.

PRUSSIAN DESP A 7 OH ON ITALIAN
AFFAIRS.

The Prussian Government has delivered its soul
in a despatch from Baron Schleinitz to M. de St.
Simon, and naughty Sardinia now knows what she
has to expect from the House of Hohenzollern. For
our own part we at once declare that the ways of
Prussia are not our ways, and that we will not
follow an inch on the road of Despotism. We are
therefore slow to believe the announcement of the
Patric with respect to another despatch said to have
been forwarded by our Foreign Minister to St.
Petersburg. Why, in fact, should we be led by Prus-
sia? The part which she is now playing is perfectly
transparent. She wishes to use us and abuse us.
She has hopes that we shall soon be simple enough
to back her up with our money and men in a policy
and system of government which this nation abhors,
and is already showing that there shall be no change
in her la ays, and no obligation to her backers. From
some rude instinct of Conservatism, or some anti-
' Gallican prejudice, or possibly from some dynastic
entanglements, we are to play at the game of " fol-
low my leader," in which we have absolutely no-
thing to gain, but a great deal to lose, and in which
it will be impossible to decide whether victory or
defeat will be the better for us, There is only one
thing quite certain in the business, and that is, that
if, at a cost of a thousand millions and a proportionate
number of men, we were to secure for Austria and
Prussia the whole of their present frontiers, and a
few provinces more, the very first use they would
make of their new and more comfortable position
would be to do us an ill turn, just to show their
independence and to avert the contagion of our
freedom. In point of fact, Prussia has really a
greater dislike for our social customs and institu-
tions than she has for the dangerous ambition of
another neighbour. She can at least sympathise
with the man who is looking so hard across his
boundary, for the Rhine is a very intelligible object
of cupidity, but she cannot sympathise with a nation
whose chief rule of life is the unwritten law of mu-
tual consideration, and who can move about without
an official always at their elbow; So, at the same
moment that the organs of the Prussian Govern-
ment are instructed to inform the world that we are
most delightfully at accord as to the part we are to
take on the European stage, they are showing us up
to the world as a nation of blackguards ready to
convert every railway carriage into a prize ring.
The old English gentleman, it is expected, will take
down his old folios and investigate the original text
of treaties, written across and across half a dozen
times, and then furbish up his old armour to do
battle for captive princes and fair provinces in
jeopardy, without the hope of being considered even
a gentlemanly fool. He is a brute after all, and,
when he has cut his fagot and carried it, is to be
dismissed for an ugly Caliban. This same Caliban,
he is already aware, has a good deal of work cut out
for him by the Prussian diplomatists. He has not
only to save Prussia from some tormenting anxieties
as to her present possessions, but to foster her hopes
and share her illusions in another quarter. Our army
and our navy, as well as our vast revenue, are no
more regarded as our own, and bestowed upon us
by Nature for our own private use, than are the
strong legs of a horse or the fat flanks of a prize
ox. " Sic vos non vobis" is the song of the Prussian
Minister, as he sees us ploughing the seas or
marching across the world. Clowns as we are, like
many other clowns, we are created for the support
of legitimate monarchs, despotic Governments, and
bureaucratic institutions.
The most remarkable feature in this outbreak of
German in solence, which, like many thunderstorms,
has broken out in two places at once, is the con-

spiracy or the terrorism whtch it betrays. Staats
Procurators and Ober-Staats Procurators, with all

their staffs and a dozen Gazettes and Zeitungs, all
join either in impertinent abuse of British travel-
lers or in cowardly suppression of the facts even
when tendered to them, and a unanimous admission
that neither opinion nor truth itself is free in Prus-

sia. When a Prussian official on the seat of justice
betrays his bias by digressing into the grossest
abuse of this country, it is a crime in Prussia for
any one, native or foreign, to protest against his
brutality. The journals themeelNes are not at
liberty to record the fact that such a protest has
been made. The British tourist will now know
what to expect on the Rhine, that great thorough-
fare of nations, as it has been fondly supposed. He
is absolutely at the mercy of any Prussian who may
choose to insult him ; and when it is known that
the Queen's yacht was stopped at Cologne by the
authorities, who demanded to search her and turn
the Queen's boxes inside out, we may conclude that
the wish to insult the whole nations in the person
of her Majesty is not wanting. Even the Irish
rabble in the United States have not behaved so ill
to the Prince of Wales. But, to return to our tou-
rist, if he makes an attempt to assert against any
Prussian the universal rights of the traveller, that
Prussian has only to hand him over to the police-
man, the policeman to the magistrate, the magis-
trate to the inspector, the inspector to his superior,
and. so on ad infinitum, without the smallest oppor-
tunity of redress. The unhappy tourist, once in
prison or under judicial process, might as well be
in an oubliette in the Castel Ovo, with the waters of
the Mediterranean rolling over his head. He is
hermetically sealed up by the German press. There
is not an editor, or a writer, or a compositor, or a
printer's boy who dares breathe a syllable about
him, unless it be some foul abuse of the British
tourists or glorification of the Ober-Procurator Von
Something-or-Other. If they correct a statement,
supply a missing fact, or give publicity to a mild
protest, they are liable to prosecution and im-
prisonment, with the certain knowledge that the
liability will be duly enforced. This is the con-
dition of the Prussian press, and the Government
of which it forms a Virtual part; and all Europe
has just been told that Lord John Russell has ex-
changed with the Prussian Minister assurances of
unanimity and support under any probable cir-
cumstances.
No doubt, there is a considerable difference be-
tween English and German customs and institu-
tions ; about as great a difference as there is
between a natural tree and a wooden tree in a
German toybox. But, what is the result? In th is
country no foreigner has to complain of incivility
either at our railway stations or from his fellow-
passengers, and such an incident as a German
being deprived of his seat, and dragged to prison
for asserting his right to it, is utterly impossible
here. The railway porters to a man would vmdi-
highest nobleman in the
este his right against the