The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-03 00:00:00

NORTH ITALY.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
TURIN, MARCH 31.
I endeavoured, in my yesterday's letter, to give
you my views of the ground there might be for
those alarms of an outbreak of hostilities on the Po

and Mincio which for the last few days have per-

plexed politicians, and blanched the cheeks of stock-
holders. The immediate danger is removed ; for,

as I told you, the Austrians have reoccupied those
districts of the so-called Oltre-po-Mantovano (Ser:

mide, Gonzaga, and Revere), which they seemed

most certainly to have evacuated with a view to
lure the Italians to a deed of aggression which

might point them out as common peacebreakers,

The Italians did not fall into the trap,

and matters are now, to all appearance, on
the same footing as before. Both parties are

equally penetrated with the necessity of keeping
the peace--both equally panting for a good reason
to go to war. On the part of Italy war is long since
actually, most openly, irrevocably declared; but
the declaration will only be followed up by positive
hostilities when the newly-united nation shall be in-
ternally and externally strong enough to vindicate
an indisputable right. Oa the Austrian side Villa-
franca was looked upon as a peace with France, but
only an armistice with Sardinia. The Mincio may
be closed against Austria by treaties ; but the Po,
or rather the defenceless Modenese frontier on the
right bank of that river, is a barrier which she is not
only entitled, but in sacred duty bound to leap over.
Each within his own limits, the two implacable
enemies neglect no opportunities for mutual provo-
cation ; well aware as both are that the first who
shall venture to take up the gauntlet which they
are perpetually flinging. into each other's face will
have to encounter European opinion arrayed on the
side of his adversary. Notwithstanding the masses
of troops which Austria is described as incessantly
pouring down into devoted Venetia, it seems almost

impossible to believe that she will add to the enor.

mous burden of unpopularity under which she is
labouring by setting fire to a train of which no
liVing man can see the end. She has suffered her
best chances to slip one by one the throos
of Central Italian annexation, the discontent
arising from the cession of Savoy and Nice, the
diversion in the South by Garibaldi, and the
expedition into the Marshes and Umbria by Fanti
and Cialdini. New, this latter General, a hero in
the eyes of his triumphant division, at the head
of the conquerors of Castelfidardo, with all the
might of the cannon of Ancona, Gaeta, and Messina,
has come back to his old quarters in the /Emilia ;
armed resistance is at an end in the Two Sicilies,
and, as for mere civil broils and party agitation,
even if the mobilize6l national guards of Northern
Italy were not sufficient to keep the peace at
Naples and Palermo, the Turin Government might
well afford to let political passions run riot for one
season, sure that any internal difficulty is best
settled by the solution of the great foreign question.
Were it only possible to draw Austria to an un-
provoked act of aggression, no doubt Count Cavour
would bring the whole Italian nation, no less than
the whole Royal army, into the field. Mazzinianism
and Garihaldism are only formidable so long as
they are in the van of the national combatants;
but let the King's Government take its station in
the foremost ranks, and parties will be hushed up
till after the termination of the war. Count Cavour
knows all this; he labours under no uneasiness
about Austrian attacks ; but he is, however, so well
convinced of the fatal results which might be
expected from an offensive line of policy, that he
was, even lately, turning the attention of the people
from Venice by pointing to Rome as the most
immediate aim of Italian ambition. The Quadri-
lateral, he is well aware, is a hard bone to gnaw,
and the question of Venice, whatever may be
thought of M. von Vincke's sympathies, cannot be
settled with Austria alone.

The only question is, is Count Cavour the abso-
lute master of the situation in Italy ? Is he the real
doorkeeper of Janus's Temple, and can he reckon
without Garibaldi, Bertani, and all those headlong
patriots who seemingly stole a march upon him last
spring, and effected their landing at Marsala.
It is the almost superstitious dread of Garibaldi's
daring which may inspire Austria with a rashness,
the last phase of terror and despair. You have not
forgotten, I hope, that soon after Garibaldi's expe-
dition to Sicily, not only thousands of volunteers
from all classes of society hastened to swell his
ranks, but that a great part of the Royal army had
been actually demoralised by the fever of warlike
adventure, and that from every Piedmontese corps,
and still more from the corps recruited in the
newly_annexed provinces, deserters in great num-
bors quitted their standards with arms and equip-
ment, and with their very Royal coats on their
backs made for the next harbour to embark for the
Southern crusade. You have not forgotten how
the Ferrara Brigade attempted to go off almost in
a body, to the great distress and despair of its
colonel, Cosenz, who, after doing his best to resist
the impulse of his soldiers, ended by being dragged
along with them, and put himself at the head of
the third Garibaldian expedition.
Well, something of that frantic enthusiasm
which 'last year so nearly exposed the north of
Italy to invasion, from an ungovernable hurry to
rescue the south from thraldom, seems now that
spring brings round the warlike; season to creep
along the ranks of the Italian army no less than
go by
among the multitude. Secret ageilts, vvh°
the name of Mazzinians, en isting
Garibaldians, have been busy secretly yle themls.elves
regiments' who are
soldiers out of the regular regi
and st
instructed to keep themselves ready for the call
that will not long be delayea • More than 8,000
all armed and equid,
men in different corps,
s solemnly bespoken ppe
+l,
;
are said to have been thu
recruiting parties 'are,
it is said, either non-com-
missioned officers in the various regiments or agents
in every variety of disguises, and even women.
money, it io again rumoured, ins freely lavished