The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-13 00:00:00

ITALY.

Part VIII. of " further correspondence relating

to the affairs of Italy" was published yesterday.
Most of the papers have already appeared, but the
following are new, and will be read with interest :

" No. 31.

" LORD J. RUSSELL TO THE CHEVALIER DE FOR-
TUNATO..
" Foreign-office, Feb. 20.
" Sir,—The intelligence which has reached this
country of the capitulation of the fortress of Gaeta,
and of the departure of his Majesty King Francis
11., and the Queen his consort, from his late do-
miniOns, renders it necessary that I should acquaint
you that, under the present state of things, you
can no longer be accredited at this Court as the
reprEsentath e of the Government of the King of
the Two Sicilies.
" I will not on this occasion indulge in vain re-

gret at the catastrophe which has befallen the
Bourbon Dynasty in the Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies. The British Government had long fore-
seen, and had repeatedly warned, not only King
Francis IL, but his immediate predecessor, of the
dangers they incurred by the policy they pursued;
but I cannot close my official intercourse with you
without requesting you to accept the assurance of
my personal esteem, to which the manner in which
you have conducted the business that you have had
to transact with me has given you so just a claim.
" I am, &c., " J. RUSSELL "
" No. 32.
(Translation.)

" London, Feb. 22.
"My Lord,—l have received with deep regret,
although without surprise, the note dated the 20th,
in which you do me the honour to inform me that
his Majesty the King, my august Sovereign, hav-
ing quitted his States, in consequence of the fall of
Gaeta, I could not for any further period be accre-
dited to this Court as the representative of his
Sicilian 11Iajesty.
" I say without surprise,' my lord, because it
has for a length of time been easy to forsee that the
British Government would come to this resolution ;
on the one hand, from the want of sympathy, of
good will, and I will even say of generosity to•
wards the King's cause, of which they have given
proof, and which I have had to note with profound
regret more and more every day, when their sup-
port would have been to him of the most efficacious
nature ; and, on the other, by the strong encou-
ragement given to the movement in Italy, which in
giving help to the revolution could not:but paralyse
the generous efforts and that noble and heroic cou-
rage with which the King has defended up to the
last the rights of his subjects and of his Crown..
" It is to this moral support of the British Go-
vernment that Italy owes it in a great measure—
your Excellency avows it yourself—that she is at
this day almost entirely subjected to the dominion
of the King of Piedmont. It remains only to be
seen if the desired unity will ever be accomplished
and consolidated ; and if England, who appears
from her policy to have had it in her eye to make of
Italy a powerful ally, through the gratitude which
the latter would owe her, will not hereafter have
cause to regret that policy, when one day she sees
her allied to a powerful rival.
" Still, your Excellency has chosen on many
occasions to express your regret at the final catas-
trophe which has brought with it the fall of the
dynasty ; but you lay the blame of this entirely
upon the King's Government.
" Permit me, my lord, on the last occasion that
I have the honour of addressing your Excellency
officially, to lay down in the interests of justice and
of truth the exact nature of the facts and of the
circumstances which have led to the deplorable
events of which Italy has been the theatre.
" The young King, from his first accession to the
throne, has had no other thought nor other aim
than the goad and the prosperity of his subjects,
and it has surely been very unjust not to have
reckoned in his favour the immense difficulties, cer-

tainly not of his own creation, in the midst of which
he suddenly found himself, and against which he
has had to struggle. And here, my lord, I cannot
refrain from loudly repelling all the accusations
and the numerous calumnies which in England
have been levelled at the King from the very com-
mencement of his reign, and which even public
functionaries have not shrunk from complacently
echoing, by adding to the recitals of the press the
authority of their names.
" If there were faults in the internal administra-
tion of the kingdom, and abuses to be regretted in
the action of the police, it yet was not just to trace
the responsibility of them back to the King, who
unhappily has himself been the victim of his con-
fidence in those traitors or villains who surrounded
him, and who, being won over to the cause of Sar-
dinia, were interested in concealing, from him the
truth. And besides the re-establishment of the
Constitution, a Liberal Government which public
opinion had pointed out to the King, and the offer
even of an alliance with Piedmont, which the un-
bounded ambition of that State, and her well-defined
projects of aggrandisement, led her to reject upon
a thousand pretexts, were not these sufficient gua-
rantees for the future?

" Have the populations of the Two Sicilies true
cause to congratulate themselves upon the new
order of things, to which it is sought to subject
them by force, in opposition to their traditions and
their interests ? Has not the whole kingdom been
occupied by troops? Are not numbers of subjects
faithful to their King summarily shot, under the
pretence that they are brigands ? Are not those
individuals who in any way declare against an-
nexation, or in favour of their legitimate Sovereign,
quickly imprisoned by hundreds? And domiciliary
visits, and the law regarding suspected persons,
against which there was so great an outcry under
the Government of the King, are not these more
than ever the order of the day ? And all this, my
lord, in the name of liberty, and of Italy one and
regenerated!
" It is not the King's subjects, it is not the dis-
content which his Government may have excited
among them, but it is the united and audacious
efforts of revolutionary characters from all countries;
the disloyal intrigues of Piedmont; and lastly, the
unprecedented aggression of her army, without
grounds or declaration of war, accomplished by the
most flagrant violation of this same alleged principle
of nonintervention, which have brought on this
grievous catastrophe.
" Whatever may be the result, if the political
passions of our day prevent a calm and just judg-
ment upon the events which have just taken place
in the south of Italy, the decision of history will not
be the less severe and impartial as to the disloyal
means which have been boldly employed to arrive at
it, and as to the morality of its principal promoters:
" Before concluding, I feel it to be my duty, my
Lord, to express to you my lively sense of the flatter-
ing expressions towards myself contained in your
letter, and for all the kindness which you have
shown me in the official relations which 7, have had
the honour of maintaining with your Excellency.—
I take, &c.,. " C. FORTUNATO."