Litchfield enquirer., 1879-12-11


 l A weak and sepseless puppet High on the Caesars throne l priestly brigand ruling
 Where once M@cenas shone! | Tibering holding
 | The old despotic sway,
 l Where Capris island citadel
 | Looks OCT the purple bay!
 As Egerton said afterwards, the verses were,
 perhaps bad enough to deserve short term of imprisonment. They undoubtedly savored of
 the circumstances under which they had been
 composed-a sleepless night in the interior of
 a diligence.
 In those days, however, such things were no | laughing matter. It was evident that the trial
 mere nocksy ana uf ihs psfadd pfsSner
 Our hearts sank within us as we thought of
 his probable fate. The British government
 had admitted the right of the king to try him
 according to the laws of Naples and had only
 urged the acceleration of the proceedings.
 Still the trial dragged along it's weary
 length. The king, with cat-hke cruelty, took
 a pleasure in prelonging the sufferings of his
 victim. The press in England continued to
 thunder against him, and at last, parliament
 being about to meet the Admiral at Malta was l ordered to send a small squadron into the Bay
 of Naples.
 | We knew, of course, that this meant ''moral l influence" and not active interventions. Yet
 1t was not without most agreeable sensation
 of pleasure that we saw the ships in the ofing,
 led by the VictoriG splendid screw frigate of | hftyone guns On she came, swift as lOco-
 motive, graceful as yacht, terrible as an ar
 my. Above her foated the flag of England, ] the proud emblem of the sovereignty of the seas untarnished still as in the days when
 Blake bore it in triumph over the sinking cor sairs, or as when, on the eve of Trafalgar, it streamed in Spanish breezes beside the majes- tic simplicity of Nelson's immortal signal. | We had not heard that Puteney had recent ly been appointed to the command of the Vic- t0rt0, and it was pleasing surprise when he appeared at our hotel He accompanied us to the trial, our daily occupation, and his indig- 1 nation passed all bounds. He had seen in | China something of the lortures that human | tyranny is capable of inf1cting, and his blood boiled at the thought of his favorite Egerton, | whom he had looked upon as a younger broth CT, being delivered over to similar barbari- | ties.
 scens as!s Sf rey x5 sns resun ns%al l ed. It was nearly eleven when an officer in an exceedingly smart uniform entered hastily and spoke few words in low vece to the president. The latter conferred for few minutes with his brother judges and then, as the Procurator-Generalb began to reterate de- tnand that certain words used by the prisoners I'counsel should be taken down as reasonable he administered to that functionary "set down. such as Dr. Johnson might have be- slowed upon James Boswell. Had an earth quake occurred, it would probably have oc- casioned less surprise, and the Frocurator- Gen. eral remained with his mouth open, and not for some moments could he recover the power of speech sufficiently to humble out his old remark about answering for it to our Lord the King ''The King" replied the president ''has no wish except that justice may be done in this, as in every case which is brought be- fore his royal tribunals It is the unanimous decision of myself and of my fellow judges that the evidence for the prosecution has fail ed to establish any proof of complicity on the part of the prisoner with those wicked factions which have dared to trouble the serenity of our adorable monarch. declare the prisoner ac- quilted"
 Here he stopped down and spoke to the chief of the police. Under the orders of the latter, Harry was surrounded by some dozen gendarmes, and marched out of court. MT. Egerton and followed as closely as we could They took him at once down to the quay, placed him in boat that was waiting and made straight for Puteney's frigate. We hired boat, and followed them as fast as possible. and soon had the happiness of en- bracing our Harry, once more free man, on a British deck.
 We all thankfully accepted Pulteneys in vitation to remain on board. went back to Naples for an hour, got our traps together, paid the hotel bill, gave full powers to the consul to satisfy all demands, and especially to remunerate our unfortunate advocates liber- ally, and soon returned to the ship.
 The sea was calm as a mili-pond. and blue as the sky above us, as the TSct0r5G steamed rapidly out of the bay on her return to Malta. PulteneY, Mir. Egarton, Harry and 1 lounged lazily upon deck, and looked back with feel ings too deep for words at the fair city, the scene of so much natural beauty of so much artificial misery. Three of us had been suffer- ing for months all the tortures of intense and protracted anxiety, and the sudden change made our present happiness seem almost in- credible
 Mir. Egerton was.the first to break silence.
 II cannot understand the conduct of the | judges even now. To drag on the trial all these days and then all of sudden to acquit | the prisoner, without pretending to finish 1t. It looked as if they really wanted to show what mockery the whole thing was. It is | certain they were dead for conviction all l along"
 ''It was the appearance of that officer that | changed everything" said l. ''He must have l brought special message from Tiberius. But | what made His Majesty turn round so sudden | ly, cannot imagine. "
 ut, said with quiet smile. ''The fact is, I | thought it expedient to do little diplomacy | on my own account"
 'How was that ?" we all exclaimed at | oncs
 ''Why, you see we in the navy have sort | of traditional way of dealing with these little 1 Mediterranean potentates. It would not do to | try it too often, but every DOW and then an emergency arises, and, from all l could hear, our friend here was in parlous position. Now Dudley is good fellow, very good fellow, 1 may say, but just little bit slow. He is like the interpreters in China, who have lived | there so long that they really believe the | Chinese to be the first people in the world, and all their humbugging etiquette and false hood to be really necessary to the conduct of affairs. So it occurred to me to offer little moral support, as they call it, to his represen- tatlon. l asked him to present me to the king. He hummed and hawed, and told me | that His Majesty was not half pleased at the l presence Of the ships, and rather wanted to ig ! nore their existence. However, persuaded ! him that civility required that should wait upon His Majesty. So he sent to inquire about it, and was told that the king would ] receive me quietly that evening. Il dined with Dudley, and got lecture rom him about cutting the shop, and especial ly about saying nothing that could be under | stood as alluding to this affair of yours. Af- l ter dinner we went to the palace There were very few people there. and the king received | me pretty graciously, looking all the time as | sulKy as bear with several sore heads I I