The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-19 00:00:00

pais over the consideration of the whole ground-
work of governing authority in the Kingdom of
the Two Sicilies at this moment. I shall not in-
quire whether, according to reason and social right,
the actual government of that country be one with
or without a title—one of law or one of force. I
shall assume that the constitution of January,
1848, spontaneously given, sworn to as irrevocable
with every circumstance of solemnity, and never to
this day either controverted or ostensibly revoked,
though contravened in almost everyact Of the govern-
ment, never existed, and is a pure fiction.". Mr. Glad-
stone then suggests, with regard to our own in-
terest in this question, that " a question may
arise in reference to the treaty of 1844 between the
Two Sicilies and England, upon some parts of
which, as a colleague of your lordship, I had the
honour to be employed." Again approaching that
picture of evil which which he is about to delineate,
he observes : "I am persuaded that, in reading this
letter, you will feel disposed to ask, how can con-
duct so inhumann and monstrous be pursued with-
out a motive ? and what can be the motive here ?
To answer that question fully, I must enter into
the history of the Neapolitan constitution. Ido
not refer to the struggle waged by the King of
Naples against his Sicilian subjects. My subject is
the conduct of the Government of that sovereign.
towards his Neapolitan or .continental subjects,'
through whose fidelity and courage the subjuga-
tion of Sicily was effected."
." There is a general impression," he then observes,
" that the organisation of the Governments of
Southern Italy is defective—that the administra-
tion of justice
,is tainted with corruption—that
instances of abuse or cruelty among subordinate
public functionaries are not uncommon, and that
political offences are punished with severity, and
with no great regard to the forms of justice." This
is the mild and favourable view of the matter,
which Mr. Gladstone repudiates as altogether in-
adequate to the blackness of the real case.
" Had this supposition of the state of things been
accurate," says he, "I should have spared myself
this labour. The difference between the faintest
outline that a moment's handling of the pencil
sketches, and the deepest colouring of the most
elaborately finished portrait, but feebly illustrates
the relation of these vague suppositions to the
actual truth of the Neapolitan case.
" It is not merely imperfection, not corruption in
low quarters; not occasional 'severities, that I am
about to describe; it is incessant, systematic, deli-
berate violation of the law by the power appointed
to watch over and maintain it—it is open violation
of human and written law, as there carried on for
the purpose of violating every other law, unwritten,
eternal, human, or divine—it is the wholesale per-
secution of virtue when. united with intelligence,
operating upon such a scale that entire classes Inv
with truth be said to be its object, so that the Govern-
ment is in bitter and cruel, as well as utterly illegal
hostility to whatever in the nation really lives, and
moves, and forms the mainspring of practical pro-
gress and improvement—it is the awful profana-
tion of public religion, by its notorious alliance in
the governing power with the violation of every
moral law under the stimulants of fear and yen-
geance—it is the perfect prostitution of the judicial
office which has made it, under veils only too thread-
bare and transparent, the degraded recipient of the
vilest and clumsiest forgeries, got up wilfully and
deliberately by the immediate officers of the crown
for the purpose of destroying the peace and free-
dom—aye, and even if, not by capital sentences, the
life—of men amongst the most virtuous, upright,
intelligent, distinguished, and refined of the whole
community—it is a savage and cowardly system of
moral as well as, in a lower degree, of physical
torture, through which the sentences extracted
from debased' courts of justice are carried into
effect. •

" The effect of all .this is .a total inversion of all
the moral and social duties. Law,.instead of being
respected, is odious. Vorce, not affection, is the
fcundation of government. There is no association,
but a violent antagonism, between the idea of free-
dom and that of order. The governing power, which
teaches of itself that it is the image of God upon
earth, is clothed, in the view of the overwhelming
majority of the thinking public, with the vices for
its attributes. I have seen and heard the strong
and too true expression used,-7-' This is the nega-
tion of God, erected into a system of government. "
Mr. Gladstone goes on to speak well of the dispo--
sition of the unfortunate Italian and Christian popu-
lation who are doomed to groan under this horrible
yoke. , confess my amazement at the gentleness
of character which has been shown by the Neapoli-
tan people in times of revolution. It really seems as.
if the hell-born spirit of revenge had no place what-
ever in their. breasts. I kxow that at any rate some
illustrious victims arc supported by a spirit of Chris-
tian resignation, and by their cheerful acceptance
of the will of God.. But the present persecution is
awfully aggravated, as compared with former ones.
It differs, too, in this—that it seems to be especially
directed against those men of moderate opinions
whom a government well stocked with worldly
prudence, whom Machiavelli, had he been
Minister, would have made it his study to conciliate
and atfach. These men, therefore, are being cleared
away, and the present efforts to• drive poor human
nature to extremes cannot wholly fail in stirring
up the ferocious passions which never, to my belief,
since the time of the heathen tyrants, have had so
much to rouse, or so much to palliate, when aroused,
their fury."
After this impressive preamble, Mr. Gladstone
states that the number of political prisoners con-
fined in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, at the
period of his visit, was variously estimated, lAA
that he does. not reckon it below 20,000, and in
NapleS alone sornehundreds were under indictment
at the moment of his writing. In the trial of the
15th of May, which was then expected shortly to
Come on, the number capitally charged was 400 or
500, " including," as he. tells Lord Aberdeen, " one
or more • peAons- of high. station, whose opinionS
would be considered in England more-conservative
than your own." He adds, that the number 'of