The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-14 00:00:00

TILE NELPOLITAN PRISONERS.

(From the Times.)
-Tr
What could have induced the'4iner 'f Naples to
_other
letroerlo, Settcoprini, and flic
soners bee upon' society once more ? Seciety,
especially socicty4owards the instep of-the Italian
Bobt, is as much in danger as; ever from the in-,
famous machinations of those misguided men. Has
....thediscipline of the prisons in that pleasant baj„.
-where the waters on which they look out seem to
smile in mockery Of the captives', 'anguish, been:
effective to quell and crush in them the. spirit of
revolt against the constituted authorities ? Shall
we see a repetition of the intellectual destruction
'worked on Silvo Pellico when these prisoners are
let loose from gaol? Will Poerio come out drivel-
ling about the Immaculate Conception and the cle-
mency of King .i.somba ? Or, finally, is it. that the
I)reanolitun Sovereign is taking a hint from the
,ethical syStein of the unjust steward, and making
to himself friends of the 136N-ers under whose domi,
nion he must speedily come ? Why should that
apparently unrelenting grasp be relaxed at last ?
What reason is there why he should spare to•day—
he who never spared man before 9 Why should
.Shylock repent hini on a• Friday—late—of the
cruelties he has meditated since the last Sabbath of
his people ? The . approaching marriage of the.,
_Duke of. Calabria, either• directly, or by inference,'
affordS but a very imperfect answer to these clues:.
tions. .

Would, even now, at the twelfth hour, and
far on in the twelfth hour, we could arrive at the
conclusion that a saner system of government
is contemplated by- those who for a time hold
the destinies of Southern Italy in their hands
Would that we could accept this amnesty as the
first fruits, or earnest, of that wiser system ! From
what we are about to say let no reader look for
revelations which will help him to solve the Italian
riddle of the hour. The arcana imperil of which
we are about to speak have been for the last forty
years as notorious and patent toall observers as the
fiery crown of Vesuvius on the darkest night. If
we are now threatened with war—and let etch man
speculate for himself on the probabilities of it—it is
King Ferdinand of Naples and men like him, quite
as much as ambitious Kings and Emperors, who
have brought Southern Europe to that pass. If the
nations of the civilised world are arming; if mercan-
tile securities are changing into trash like yester-
day's fairy coin ; if the plains of Lombardy are
again to be steeped in blood ; if Emperors, Kings,
and their Ministers are preparing to throw od
JEson into the cauldron once more, to see what will
come of boiling him up again, it is King Ferdinand
of. Naples and his peers whom we have to thank for
it. To anticipate such events as those of which we
are speaking is well nigh to realise them. The
immediate storm may yet be averted, but as long
as Italy is so infamously misgoverned as it has been
for many years past, the actual occurrence of the
evils we dread can but be a question of months, of
weeks, of days. Princes and Ministers may, for the
purposes of their own private ambition and for their
own selfish ends, toy And coquette with the spirit
which is abroad. They may call it into premature
action, but they cannot very long keep it under, if
they would. The elements of confusion and destruc-
tion are so plentifully scattered from the Alps to
Reggio that a child's hand may at any moment pro-
duce an explosion. A fantastic hat, the charred end
of a cigar, a mistaken cry, may suffice as a signal
where all men are prepared. It is likely enough that
the high personages whose acts and words have led tO
all this turmoil may at last shrink-from the spectre
they have summonedon the scene, and do what they
can to back out of so false a position ; but they may
be held to their bargain in a way thcylittle thought.
The evil is there on which they have speculated,
and that evil is half a century of oppression and
misgovernment.

Tile Neapolitan King has let his captives loose at
last, and we presume that he has done this because
he felt it the most politic course for his own inte-
rests. But, as far as he is concerned, although he
has undoubtedly chosen the wiser course, it was
almost equally dangerous to stand still or to go on.
If he retained them in their fetters a little while
longer, and added a few months to their long years
of martyrdom, public feeling would have been ex-
asperated against him more and more. When he
lets them loose he simply liberates witnesses to his
own insincerity. Poerio chained is a chained wit-
ness—Poerio free is a free witness to the fact that
King Ferdinand will at any time trample under
foot his pledged faith. He has lain these long
years in his dungeon—he has suffered the utmost
extremities of human misery, simply because he
had done what the King, his master, had sworn to
do. When the storm came Poerio trusted to the
King ; when the storm abated Poerio trusted to the
King still; but the time for trusting had passed
away. This it is which forms the chief difficulty
of the King's position, should he be advised to bend
once more to the storm, and to ask again for the
confidence of his subjects. How can they trust
him ? It is not surprising that King Ferdinand of
Naples should be taking alarm at what lie sees
about him—he would indeed be bereft of reason if
he did not apprehend the perils of his present situ-
ation. He has consented to release these unfortu-
nate captives, whose lives have been turned into a
long agony by his breach of faith; but this only
proves that he shrinks from the hour of retribu-
tion. It must indeed be acknowledged that he has
made the anzenee as completely a% he could. King
Ferdinand has banished the culprits from his do-
minions. Such is the state of the Two Sicilies
that this is the greatest mark of favour in the
Sovereign's gift.