The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-09 00:00:00

TILE VOL UN7EERS.

TO TELE EDITOR OF TIIE SUN.

SlR,—Allow me to amend my first letter on a
point of importance.

In 1805 the volunteers were formed in regiments
of 1,000 strong, and even in larger masses, clothed
in red, and armed, accoutred, and drilled like re-
gular troops. Of use they were, displaying the
moral power excited by the danger of invasion ; but
as soldiers mere mimics, without solidity to support
the regular army, and offering points of weakness.to
the enemy, because, having neither artillery nor
cavalry of their own, they required the aid of those
arms of war from the regulars ; for it is by fine com-
binations of infantry, cavalry, and artillery that
battles are won. Soon all would have had to trust
to their legs ; for be it known to Mr. Wise that
absolute running away at the right time is also an
essential part of warfare, to be learnt with care,
though a battle is not the best school for the first
lesson.

The regular artillery would then have feared to
close on the French masses, trusting only to the
support and protection of unwieldy, untaught, ill-
commanded mobs of volunteers.

Now, acting as riflemen, the volunteers will be
independent of the regular army, yet support it;
and, having free play for their own natural intelli-
gence, it will in each be developed according to
mother wit—though it is not every mother that
gives her son military wit, as proved by Mr. Wise.
They would also more easily escape from the evil of
incapable commanders, and yet give full play to
their own usefulness.
Thus it would be :

A rifle infantry man takes post, under cover, half
a mile from a French column of march, and he
plumps into it every shot, or knocks over the men
and horses of the artillery and cavalry, if at all ex-
posed to his fire. At the same time one or two of
Sir William Armstrong's lightest guns, which are
said to be of sure stroke at two miles' distance, and
may be drawn by two horses, can take post a mile
or more behind the riflemen, pounding the enemy's
column and protecting our own skirmishers from
cavalry, which, however, could make but little im-
pression, giving, as they would do, half a mile start
to the volunteers in running away, if such running
should be expedient.
It may be said the French have rifles and long
ranging guns also. True ; and it would be a fair
fight between the riflemen on each side ; but the
heavily-loaded Frenchmen would soon tire, and the
main column must halt to rally them again. Thus
the long ranging arms, pushing the volunteers into
their natural career, have quadrupled their power;
and, all former points of weakness being swept away
they will be a real support to the regular troops,
instead of a drain and a burden.

The delay thus enforced on the enemy must be
made also under the destructive fire of the Armstrong
gun, which would hit always, and never be hit by
a counter gun of the same range, for the columns
of the enemy could not hide, they must be perforce
of Mr. Wise's school ; whereas the Armstrong gun
could and would hide, and, having fired, remove to
another place to fire again, so that the enemy's shot,
directed only by the smoke, would strike an empty
nest.

Each gun, whether manned by volunteers or
militia artillerymen—and there are many good ones
—should be attended by small corps of volunteer
ca' airy always moving with it, ready to support the
skirmishers and protect the gun from accidental
roving detachments of the enemy's horsemen. We
also should have roving horsemen—aye, and fight-
ing horsemen, numerous and bold. They would
soon teach the French cavaliers how much a good
horse has to do in warfare ; horses never blunder if
their riders be earnest and strong-willed.
The last Gazette having given me a step of rank,
my signature will be in future
Nov. 4, W. NAPIER, General.

TIIE STATE OF ITALY.

TO THE EDITOR OF TIIE SUN.

SIRS I enclose a copy of a letter I have ad-
dressed to Lord Brougham on the affairs of Italy,
and I shall be glad if you should think fit to
publish it.

Your obedient servant,
ELLENBOROUGII.
12, Upper Belgrave-street, Nov. 8.

"THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH TO LORD
BROUGHAM.

" Southam, Delabere, Nov. 5.
"My dear Brougham,—l propose to subscribe a
small sum to the fund for the purchase of arms to
be placed at the disposal of Garibaldi.
" If all those who wish well to the cause of inde-
pendence in Italy would, for the same purpose,
subscribe such small sums as they can spare with-
out inconvenience, the aggregate amount of their
contributions would be large, and they would ma-
terially assist in supplying the Italians with the
means of making themselves respected.
" Arms, organisation, and discipline constitute the
real strength of a people. In proportion to that
strength is the respect it obtains. Upon that foun-
dation alone the independence of every country
must really rest.
" I admit, with deep regret, that the Italians
have, as yet, made but little use of the opportunity
which the events of the war have placed before
them.

" They have confined themselves very much to
rejoicings in anticipation of the independence
which they have neither achieved nor deserved.
They have been waiting to receive from the hands
of others that which they should disdain to owe to
any hands but their own.
" Acting under the direction of men hastily se-
lected, and unequal to the crisis in which they
were called forth to govern, they are even now, I
fear, in Central Italy, insufficiently prepared
against the threatened invasion of the two most
contemptible of armies—those of Naples and of the
Pope.

"I will still hope for better things. I will hope
that, stimulated by the insults to Italy which are
conveyed in the demands France is about to make
in the Congress, they will rise to vindicate their
right to choose their own Government, and clutch
the arms by which alone it can be secured.
" There is in Italy one man who has at once a
ad to direct, a hand to execute, and a heart which
tells him what is right. That man is Garibaldi.
" Let the Italians follow where he leads, and they
will at least acquire the honour which has been so
long unknown to them as a people.

a' Ile has no measures to Observe with France. If
he should obtain success, he will not consent to hold
the provinces he liberates as a fief of the French
empire.

"He will not lend himself to the carrying out of
the idea of the First Napoleo4, that France should
be surrounded by weak dependent States.
" If the Italians should obtain no change but that
of substituting the influence of France for that of
Austria, they will only have changed the outward
form of their humiliation, and have laid the foun-
dations of perpetual disunion and of constantly re-
curring war in their country.
" I believe that the creation of a great, united,
and independent State in Italy (and to be inde-
pendent it must be great) would tend more than
any other measure which could be adopted to secure
the peace of Central Europe.
" Incapable of entertaining projects of conquest
beyond the Alps, which it would be evidently im-
possible to realise, such a State would have a com-
mon interest with Austria in closing that natural
barrier against the foreigner; and stria, relieved
from all apprehension on the side of Italy, would,
in union with Germany, present on the Rhine and
on the Vistula a concentrated strength which no
ambition would assail, because none could hope to
overcome.

" This was the opinion I formed at the Congress
of Vienna. I expressed it in the House of Com-
mons in 1816. I have adhered to it through life.
" The unexpected events in the early part of this
year appeared at one time to place this great result
almost within our grasp.
" I will still trust that such high hopes have not
been held out to Europe only for a moment, to be
then dashed away and to deceive. I will trust that
the Italians may prove themselves not unworthy of
their fortune, and may be mindful of other and
higher traditions than those to which France has
directed their regards.
" At least, let us, sympathising with them in
circumstances which were once our own, place in
their hands the arms by which alone, under Provi-
dence, their redemption can be achieved.
" In the will of Providence must rest their suc-
cess, but with arms in their hands they may at least,
instead of being unresistingly transferred, like cattle,
by foreigners, fall nobly like soldiers in the field,
and acquire that glorious name which has been ac-
corded by the concurrence of all ages to those who
perish in the attempt to liberate their country.
" It would give me much satisfaction to learn