V. The Visit of Garibaldi to England

SIR, — I alone am responsible for the contents of this Letter, and for the fact of its being addressed to you. I have not asked your permission, because I do not think that I am bound to do so. I write to you as one of her Majesty's Privy Councillors who have not waited upon General Garibaldi. My first impulse was to pour out the feeling which has been aroused in me by recent events to one of your colleagues, but to my sorrow I saw that he \vas conspicuous in his attendance on General Garibaldi. Disappointed in this, I turn to you. I have ever believed you and found you to be just and even in your judgments and actions towards those who differ from you, and though large and generous in your popular sympathies, yet wise and firm. You have held a high office in Ireland, which will enable you to estimate the full breadth and critical delicacy of the subject on which I address you. You can be in no way responsible for anything I may write. I do not know how far you may or may not agree in what I say. I know that in some things of the gravest moment we must differ; but in many things the love of our country and the instincts of Englishmen must, I hope, draw our judgments together. I have waited in the hope that some one better able than I am should break silence: as no one has done so, I will.

As an Englishman, then, I will say at once I have looked on with no little sorrow and indignation at much which has attended the reception of General Garibaldi. What my political opinions may be can be of no manner of importance. It does not matter what such as I may be. But it may matter not a little to fair play that I should say what I am not. It is an easy thing to raise a prejudice against what I may say by describing me as a partisan of reaction, of brigand age, of absolutism, and the like. For this reason, and for this reason only, I will say that I am no lover of absolutism nor of despotism. If I have any politics they are popular, learned in the school which teaches that princes are for the people, not' the people for princes. This principle I accept from my heart with all its consequences and corollaries. A desire for the welfare of the people in the largest sense, which elimi nates the party politics of classes and of sectional inte rests, and above all, the dictates of a higher order of truths, would incline me to view with sympathy what soever is for the welfare of the people.

But believing that civil society is a Divine creation, and that its authority is from God, I have no sympathy with revolutions which are licentious, unjust, or without a moral necessity, still less with those which are associated with public and private immorality.

Thus much I have thought it well to say at the outset, lest what I add should be thought to flow from political bigotry -or religious prejudice.

I will, then, in as few words as I can, state the pur port of this Letter.

From the public newspapers I learn that the reception of General Garibaldi has been attended by such multitudes as have never welcomed even royal person ages on their arrival in England. We are told that the arrival of the Princess of Wales elicited no such demon strations. Ministers of the Crown, peers of the realm, Anglican prelates, members of parliament, magistrates of high dignity, ex-Chancellors, Privy Councillors, mer chants, gentlemen of all conditions, and, very conspicuously, peeresses and ladies of every class, made court for General Garibaldi. The Prime Minister, her Majesty's Chief Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and others in high place, we are told, threw open their houses to honour General Garibaldi. His movements were chronicled as by a Court newsman. At certain houses the red cloth was spread to honour his entry; the Mayor of Southampton, having fallen into a strain of poetry or of prophecy, named him the ' uncrowned king;' London rose up to meet him; the City presented its freedom with a box enriched with diamonds. That some whom I have named received him with singular demonstrations affords me no surprise: the presence of others I can account for by nothing but a momentary aberration of their habital prudence — shall I add, of their habitual dignity? That you, sir, were not of the number I could have foretold, and I have not been disappointed.

The day will I hope come, and before long, when, the fumes of this intoxication having evaporated, we shall be able to appreciate what has been done. Al ready the evidence of such a return to sobriety is to be perceived, and the time is not far off when people will be able to review what they have been doing in the light of certain facts, which I would ask leave briefly to enumerate.

1. First, then, I pass over what has already in these last days occupied the public attention, and drawn from the Times newspaper a graceful amende to a distinguished personage.1

2. In the Evening Standard of April 201 read a report of the following words, spoken by General Garibaldi at the house of a Mr. Herzen at Teddington:

' I am about to make a declaration which I ought to have made long ago. There is a man amongst us here who has rendered the greatest services to our country, and to the cause of liberty. "When I was a young man, having naught but aspira tions towards the good, I sought for one able to act as the guide and counsellor of ray young years. I sought such a man even as he who is athirst seeketh the spring. I found this man. He alone watched when all around him slept. He alone fed the sacred tlame. He lias ever remained my friend — ever as full of love for his country and of devotion to the cause of liberty. This man is Joseph Mazzini. To my friend and teacher!'

Let us appreciate this declaration by weighing it in the words of Joseph Mazzini.

1 The Quarterly Review, No. clxix. p. 237, has a curious articln on a pamphlet of the late Lord Beaumont, which bears directly on the of late events, especially in pp. 230, 237.

The Guardian newspaper of October 8, 1862, writes as follows:

' In a proclamation dated last month Mazzini announces to the world the definite termination of his truce with monarchy in Italy. " The royal bullet that entered Garibaldi," he says, "has torn the last line of the contract entered into by us republicans with monarchy. Freeing myself in May from every obligation towards the Government in all that related to action in favour of Home and Venice, I said: ' It is not now a question of republic or monarchy; it is a question of action or inertia — of unity or dismemberment — of having the foreigner in Italy or expelling him.' In my own name, and in the name of my friends, I cancel to-day those lines — the last warning given to the Government — and I declare exhausted for us is every attempt at concord; dead every hope of concession or of true Italian work from an institution which, impotent to guide, is only able to repress brutally and tyrannically the holiest and most legitimate aspirations of a people which demands its own monarchy; will not, cannot create the nation: impelled by a sentiment of its approaching doom, it dissolves rapidly that portion of the nation created by the toil of others.

"History will say that we were loyal and patient. Despite the stupid calumnies of a corrupt and venal press, history will record that out of reverence to the sentence of the people, erring though it was, out of love of Joseph Garibaldi, in order not to neglect a single chance of concord, we brought to the feet of a monarchy — noted only for deceptions, greed, and persecutions — plans, hopes, presentiments, memories, our power for agitation, the good-will to Italy created by us in Europe, our influence over the working classes, and over thousands of youths, believers in our doctrines. History will record that when, after the shameful peace of Villafranca, monarchy, terrified or guilty, abandoned Venice, offered to come to terms with the Bourbon of Naples, and, in obedience to the man of the 2d of December, renounced Italy, we, all people, volunteers, writers, continued the interrupted work; provoked the annexations of Central Italy; provoked the Sicilian insurrection; provoked agitation in Naples; accepted, calumniated and insulted though we were, Garibaldi's pro gramme; applauded the plebiscite, which gave to the trembling sluggish monarchy millions of men, freed not by it, but by their own and Garibaldi's hand.

" The people of Italy is misled by a lie.

VOL. I. -K

•' A country cannot be liberated without a principle, without the courage to deduce thence the natural consequences. Monarchy is not a principle with us; it is a calculation of opportunity erroneous according to us. Men have no faith therein; they regard it as an obstacle in their path, but dare not affront it deliberately; but, deceiving themselves and others, hope to use it as a lever." '

From the same paper, of the same date, I also extract the following portion of the address of General Garibaldi to the English nation:

' I owe you gratitude, O English nation! and I feel it as much as my soul is capable of feeling it. You were my friend in my good fortune, a-nd you will continue your precious friendship to me in my adversity. May God bless you! My gratitude is all the more intense, O kind nation! that it rises high above all in dividual feeling, and becomes sublime in the universal sentiment towards nations of which you represent the progress. Yes, you deserve the gratitude of the world, because you offer a safe shelter to the unfortunate, from whatever side they may come, and 3*011 identify yourself with the misfortunes of others you pity and help. The French or Neapolitan exile finds refuge in your bosom against tyranny. He finds S3'mpathy and aid because he is an exile, because he is unfortunate. The Haynaus, the iron executioners of autocrats, will not be supported by the soil of your free country; they will fly from the tyrannicidal anger of your generous sons.

And what should we be in Europe without your generous be haviour? Autocracy can strike her exiled ones in other countries, where only a bastard freedom is enjoyed — where freedom is but a lie. But let one seek for it on the sacred ground of Albion. I, like so many others, seeing the cause of justice oppressed in so many parts of the world, despair of all haman progress. But when I turn my thoughts to you, I find tranquillity from your steady and fearless advancement towards that end to which the human race seems to be called by Providence.

Follow your path undisturbed. O unconquered nation! and be not backward in calling sister nations on the road of human progress. Call the French nation to co-operate with you. You are both worthy to walk hand in hand in the front rank of human improvement. But call her. In all your meetings let the words of concord of the two great sisters resound. Call her! Call her in every way with your own voice and with that of her great exiles — with that of her Victor Hugo, the hierophant of sacred brotherhood. Tell her that conquests are to-day an aberration, the emanation of insane minds. And why should we conquer foreign lands, when we must all be brothers? Call her, and do not care if she is for the moment under the dominion of the Spirit of Evil. She will answer in due time; if not to-day, to-morrow; and if not to-morrow, she will later answer to the sound of your generous and regenerating words. Call, and at once, Helvetia's strong sons, and clasp them for ever to your heart. The warrior sons of the Alps — the Vestals of the sacred fire of freedom in the European continent — they will be yours! And what allies! Call the great American Republic. She is, after all, your daughter, risen from your bosom; and, however she may go to work, she is struggling to-day for the abolition of slavery so generously proclaimed by you. Aid her to come out from the terrible struggle in which she is involved by the traffickers in human flesh. Help her, and then make her sit by your side in the great assembly of nations, the final work of human reason. Call unto you such nations as possess free will, and do not delay a day. The initiative that to-day belongs to you might not be yours to-morrow. May God avert this!'

I will not trespass upon you by referring to the late revelations in Mr. Stansfeld's case in the House of Commons. I use this fact to establish from the lips of General Garibaldi his acceptance of the principles and animus of his master or guide, the representative of the Socialist revolution of Italy and of theories which I need not describe.

Whatsoever may be thought of the monarchy of Turin, I trust that they who love the monarchy of England, the monarchy of Alfred and of the Edwards, the monarchy of a thousand years of splendour and power, are not likely to lend themselves as tools to overthrow even the monarchy of Victor Emmanuel for the republic of Mazzini and Garibaldi. Sometimes, indeed, in this paradoxical and inverted world, 'the noblest things find vilest using,' and vile indeed would be the use to which England would be lowered if it should listen to the adulation of these men, and consent to serve their purposes.

3. I have nothing now to do with what may be called the theology of Garibaldi. It has already been sufficiently discussed. Nevertheless I would commend it to the reflections of the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose honoured name I read with sorrow at the reception of General Garibaldi. I would commend it also tc the conscience of the Anglican prelate who is reported to the world as making himself conspicuous by hasten ing to shake hands with General Garibaldi at the bar of the House of Lords.2 I would commend also the following, especially to the members of the Anglican Church:

'GEN-KRAI. GARIBALDI AND TIIK EVANGELICAL CONTINENTAL SOCIETY.— A deputation from the above Sqciety, consisting of the secretary, the Rev. John Shedlock, M.A.; the sub-treasurer. Eusebius Pye Smith, Esq.; the Rev. W. Tiddy; Frederick Tomkins, Esq., M.A., D.C.L., barrister-at-law; Dr. Camps; H. Mayo, Esq.; Ferdinand Ehrenzeller, Esq.; and Mr. Arthur Smith, had an audience with General Garibaldi yesterday morning, a-t the residence of Charles Seely, Esq., M.P., Princes-gate, Knightsbridge. The General received the deputation most cordially, shaking hands with each gentleman. They presented to him an address. In reply to the address General Garibaldi said: " You are the true friends of progress, and I am glad to see you. In Italy the moral influence of the Papacy is extinct. and if the French were withdrawn from Rome the Papacy would cease to exist in Italy. I do not say that I am Protestant, for if I did the priests would raise the cry of heretic against me and my influence would be gone. We are sons of the same God."¹

Upon the Kev. J. Shedlock explaining that the object of the Society's operations was not political, not to make proselytes to Protestantism, but to give the people of Italy the Holy Scrip tures, to teach the people, and to instruct the young, the General exclaimed again, " You are the true friends of progress; you are right, and I wish you all success in your efforts on behalf of Italy." H. Mayo, Esq., referred to the distinguished position to which the General had attained, and added that he wished the General eternal glory. EusebiusPye Smith, Esq., presented the General with a copy of Vinet's Convictions Religieuses, in the French language, adding that we all desired a united Italy, and that he should be glad if the General could find time to peruse the volume presented at his leisure in Caprera; to which the General assented. After cordially shaking hands with each gentleman, the deputation withdrew.'3

These seem to me, at least, to be deplorable exhi bitions, in which the indecorous and the ludicrous are provokingly mixed together.

4. Further, General Garibaldi declared at the Crystal Palace on April 17, that without the aid of her Majesty's Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, her Majesty's Chief Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Earl Kussell, and others of her Majesty's Privy Council, and Admiral Mundy, who has since denied the statement, it would have been impossible for him to have accomplished what he did in Sicily and Naples, or even to pass the Straits of Messina. General Garibaldi was then on his way to the Dictatorship illustrated by the decree in praise of Agesilao Milano. His words are reported as follows:

' England has helped us in evil times as well as in good times. The English people assisted us in our war with Southern Italy, and even now the hospitals of Naples are supplied from the abundance sent to us from this country. I speak from what

3 Standard newspaper, April 21, 1864.

I kiiow, that the Queen and the Government of England, repreMiit.d by Lord Palmerston (great cheers), Lord Russell, and Mr. Gladstone, have done a wonderful deal for our native Italy icheers). If it had not been for this country we should still have been under the yoke of the Bourbons at Naples. If it had not been for Admiral Mundy I should never have been permitted to pass the Straits of Messina (cheers).'4

5. Lastly, I read in the Farewell Address of Garibaldi to the English people the following words:

• But in face of the great principle of the solidarity of peoples, proclaimed and sanctioned by universal conscience, I cannot speak of Italy alone, still less at a time when the omen and promise of this true holy alliance has been irrevocably confirmed, when lately I pressed the hands of proscribed men from every part of Europe.

On quitting this hospitable shore I can no longer conceal the secret wish of my heart in recommending the cause of oppressed peoples to the most generous and sagacious of nations. Since their arising is certain and their triumph fated, England will know how to spread over them the powerful sliield of her name, and to sustain them, if need be, with her strong arm.'

From the facts and documents above cited I gather,

1. That he identifies himself with the Socialist re volution of Italy, in the person of Mazzini, his master and guide.

2. That he thankfully ascribes his successes in Sicily and Naples to her Majesty's Government.

3. That he invites the English people to assume the mission and office held by France in 1789, of which he deems the French people to be now un worthy, — that is, of stimulating and assisting the seditious and Socialist revolutions which at this moment threaten every Government, absolute or constitutional, throughout Europe.

< Times, April 18, 1864.

It was therefore without surprise that I read yester day in the public papers the following report of what passed in the Parliament of Turin:

' ITALY.

THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT AND GARIBALDI.

Turin, Wednesday Evening.

In the Chamber of Deputies to-day, the Minister of the Interior, in reply to speeches from several members of the Opposition, stated that it was not for the Government to declare its intentions respecting General Garibaldi and Ids party, but that it was, above all, necessary to know how the General and his party intended to act. The Minister defended the policy of the Government, and proved the necessity of seizing the arms and money in order to prevent painful occurrences. After the journey of Garibaldi to London, after the eulogy bestowed by Garibaldi on English institutions, and the respect paid by the English nation to the Queen and the laws, the Minister hoped that nobody, apart from the King and the Government, would speak in the name of the country, or pursue a policy different from that of the Government and in opposition to the constitution.'5

I am anxious to know whether the English Government be in diplomatic relations with the Government of Turin, or with the party of Garibaldi in Italy.

And now, sir, I would beg leave to say a few words on these new principles of public morality preached by General Garibaldi to the English people amid the clouds of incense in which peers and peeresses en veloped him.

As to the Milano decree and the Goddess of Reason, I leave it to Lord Shaftesbury, Mr. Arthur Kinnaird, to the Evangelical Continental Society, and to the

5 Standard, May 7, 1864.

13G THE VISIT OF GARIBALDI TO ENGLAND.

Anglican prelates who waited on him, to reconcile it with the purity of the Gospel. Of this I am sure: there is in England a Christian moral sense which will, sooner or later, rise indignantly upon the ahuse which has been passed upon its unsuspecting generosity.

My object, however, is not to discuss these pure theologies, but to ask two practical questions. First, Is it the fact that the success of Garibaldi in Sicily and Naples is to be ascribed to her Majesty's Government? Secondly, Is the country to be entangled, excited, and driven onward by the intrigues of foreign seditions until it places itself at the head of the revolutions of Europe — that is, assume to itself the mission of France under the Directory, of which Garibaldi judges the France of to-day to be unworthy?

It is time that we should know whither we are being led, while as yet we have the power to use our free will and our discretion. If this be our policy, it ought to be clearly enunciated. A league with the revolutions of the Continent had its counterpart in a coalition of the nations of the Continent. The issue is written in history. The capitals of all Europe were for a time tormented by domestic seditions, but their sovereigns met in Paris. Are we to renew the cycle, and is England to be its centre? Such, if it mean anything, is the meaning of General Garibaldi's most opportune garrulity. It reminds me of words with which you, sir, are, I doubt not, more familiar than I can be: ' We are at war with a system which, by its essence, is inimical to all other Governments, and which makes peace or war as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war. It has, by its essence, a faction of opinion, and of interest, and of enthusiasm in every country. To us it is a Colossus which bestrides our Channel. It has one foot on a foreign shore, the other upon the British soil. Thus advantaged, if it can at all exist, it must finally prevail. Nothing can so completely ruin any of the old Govern ments, ours in particular, as the acknowledgment, directly or by implication, of any kind of superiority in this new power.' This power is described: ' Instead of the religion and the law by which they were in a great politic communion with the Christian world, they have constructed their republic on three bases all fundamentally opposite to those on which the communities of Europe are built. Its foundation is laid in regicide, in Jacobinism, and in atheism; and it has joined to those principles a body of systematic manners which secures their operation.' ' The State, in its essence, must be moral and just; and it may be so though a tyrant or usurper should be accidentally at the head of it. This is a thing to be lamented; but this notwithstanding, the body of the commonwealth may remain in all its integrity, and be perfectly sound in its composition. The present case is different. It is not a revolution in Government. It is not the victory of party over party. It is a destruction and decomposition of the whole society; which can never be made of right by any faction, however powerful, nor l:iS THE VISIT OF GARIBALDI TO ENGLAND.

without terrible consequences to all about it, both in the act and in the example. This pretended republic is founded in crimes, and exists by wrong and robbery; and wrong and robbery, far from a title to anything, is war with mankind. To be at peace with robbery is to be an accomplice with it.'6 But it is this ' armed doctrine,' spreading throughout the nations of Europe, and rising against all Governments, which we have been feasting, glorifying, incensing with receptions, addresses, snuff-boxes, civic liberties, proposals of yachts, landed estates, rifled muskets, and English money. Was his Grace the Duke of Sutherland aware, when, as I hear, he touched at Caprera in the Undine, that he was inviting the principles of '89 to England, and to Stafford House? It is not grateful to me, as an Englishman, to read that the Government of Turin has been compelled to seize both money and arms. Who knows what image and superscription may be upon the money, and what brands may be upon the rifles? Are these the relations of public amity in the commonwealth of nations? We have naturally an antipathy to hear the name of a foreign power breathed in our domestic questions. It is more unconstitutional than the introduction of the name of the Sovereign in the debates of Parliament. No wonder the people rose with indignation at the name of the Emperor of the French, and at the thought of foreign dictation. But the Turin Government is not likely to dictate to Great Britain. Yet it has read us a lesson, and a very sharp and humbling lesson too: the more • Burke's Fint Letter on a Regicide Peace, pp. 24, 96, 118.

humbling and sharp, because we have deserved it. It was a position false and indecorous for our high and proud aristocracy, our chief statesmen, our first magistrates — to say no more — to be feasting and, I must say with shame, flattering a man who was stimulating the English people with the promise to carry the sword they gave him to Venice and to Rome. No wonder the police had to seize and to secrete banners with the words ' Rome or death!' upon them. Are these exalted and responsible personages prepared to accept the new world which they have been creating, and round which they have sung together, and in the praise of its maker shouted for joy? Are they prepared to lay their Georges and their Garters, together with their titles and their rent-rolls, on the altar of the country? The Emperor of the French, from whom we may learn, though we need not fear him, said well the other day that it was strange to see men just escaped from the storm invoking the tempest. It is, perhaps, because we have never yet encountered the storm that we are so foolhardy in invoking it, and so reckless in letting it loose upon our neighbours. It seems to me to be cruel and criminal to instigate, even by a word, the social dangers of continental nations, trusting in the security of our four seas. 'It is this insular selfishness which, as my own ears can bear witness, brings upon us the mistrust and just censure of foreign nations. I was witness, in 1848, of the career of Lord Minto in Italy and Rome; a large part of the last twelve years I have passed in that country, and I know the indignation, worthily aroused in my jiulgment, against the irresponsible meddling, not of England, but of individuals who bear the English name. I say, not of England, because I believe the mass of Englishmen— not only the people, but the middle class, and even the highest — from their insular position, their traditional habits of thought, and their very slight knowledge of foreign countries and their condition, have entered very little and very indifferently into most questions of foreign policy. And in the hour in which they come to see that ' the party of action,' as it calls itself, is the re-appearance of the Mountain, and that 1789 is invoked as the type and tutelary power of 1864, they will fall back with indignation from the first shadow of a revolution with its Triumvirates and Conventions and Dictatorships.

The more reflecting among us began to see that we had entered upon a career of public danger. I do not pretend to know why General Garibaldi left Eng land. Men whom I respect as intelligent and sincere persevere in affirming that it was on account of his health. Certainly he did not believe it himself; but his anxious friends say that he did not know the extent of his own maladies. Perhaps not: nor his Italian physician, and others so near to him that it would be unfeeling to alarm them with the whole truth. There are those who believe this. Be it so. There are men who believe nothing about it. Witness the working men at Primrose Hill, and Mr. Shaen, who spoke as an oracle, and promised revelations. These revelations will, I fear, be more widely believed than the explanations which they have elicited.

However, this is of little moment. One thing is certain. Not two years ago the peace of London was broken for weeks by heated language and riots in the public parks for the name of Garibaldi. Happily at this greater provocation all passed off in quiet. But London is not Manchester, and Manchester is not Liver pool, and Liverpool is not Glasgow. The lollies of the last month may pass off quietly in London, where the minority to be goaded and insulted is as one in twenty; not so where they are one in four, or one in three. It is well known that desperate resolutions were already forming among those whom these foolish ovations would have driven to deplorable excesses. Without doubt the material force in England would in the end prevail: but it would be a victory dearer than a defeat. Mr. Scully asked in the House of Commons a question which nobody has answered — < What will Ireland think of these things?' I will venture to answer it. Ireland will be divided in opinion. Almost the whole people of Ireland will look upon the royal honours paid to the man, who has once held Rome against the chief of their religion, and has sworn to drive him from Rome again, as the most refined and deadliest insult which could be directed against all that they cherish as holiest upon earth, and dearer than life itself. Of the rest, a large number will rejoice that the cause of independence and of the resurrection of oppressed nationalities should be preached and illuminated by the statesmen and peers and Ministers and Privy Councillors of England. They will accept it as a godsend. The sympathy of America and the patriotic effusions of the Fenians were old stock; but who would have hoped for the enthusiastic nationalism of the English aristocracy and of the City of London? I believe, sir, we have been on the verge of lighting up the trains of political and of religious strife in every town and province of the United King dom. And this conflagration would be somewhat too costly for the sake of welcoming the guest even of his Grace the Duke of Sutherland. I do not pretend to say that this was among the reasons why General Garibaldi was so promptly and so splendidly conveyed out of Eng land. But I will be bold to say that it ought to have been, not only one of them, but the first and chief, and, had there been no other, alone the sufficient reason. We have no need to invite General Garibaldi to Eng land to sow discord among us; nor shall we, I hope, in scribe over his triumphal entry, as, I am told, some blasphemous hand did at Naples, I.N.R.I. — Joseph of Nice, the Redeemer of Italy. We disbelieve in this redemption. There has been bloodshed indeed, for we are told, and do not doubt it, that 13,000 persons have been shot by martial law in the kingdom of Naples; but of the redemption we find no sign. Government officials there, the other day, admitted to an English gentleman, from whom I heard it within a few days after the statement was made, that the political prisoners on the mainland in Naples amount to 80,000. I was credibly informed that in Sicily they amount to 20,000 more. These are the successes which General Garibaldi tells us ' without my faithful English soldiers/ without 'English men, money, and arms,' and * without the aid of her Majesty's Ministers,' would have been impossible.

But, sir, I may not trespass longer upon your patience. Still, I must add a few words.

I am fully convinced that of the multitudes who were assembled ' the greater part knew not for what cause they were come together.' They heard it run from mouth to mouth that there was coming a hero, a conqueror, a man of courage, a man of many fights, a man of the people, a protector of the weak against the strong, of nations against despots. One, even the least, of these titles would have been enough to move an Englishman's heart to a generous sympathy, or at least to curiosity. Little knew they whom or what they were receiving. And the day will come when they will, with out losing a shadow of their large-hearted and generous love of the public weal, draw back from the example ' of France in '89.' I observe, too, with joy — for I took pains to note and care to count the names — that not fifty of the near four hundred houses which represent the traditional nobility of England were presented at this new court. The newspapers, indeed, were loud in their panegyrics, almost without exception; but in the two Houses of Parliament there was a wonderful silence, as of men who are conscious of what they do not wish to put in words. The City of London presented its freedom, but the great merchant princes and the lords of the Exchange did not appear. A few commoners were in attendance, but the great commonalty of Eng land, the lords of the soil, the sons of those who re present the untitled nobility and the heart and strength of England, were not there. It was a narrow circle after all, which, in its perpetual motion, returned always into itself, bringing round the same gamut of names in every key and combination, strange social discords which have for once met face to face, never to meet again until General Garibaldi shall have transplanted the present confusions of Italy into the social order of Eng land, before which, to borrow his farewell words to us, may England ' disappear under our ocean.'

There remains but one other topic, lighter, indeed, in its intrinsic gravity, but not light to those to whom the name of England and the grace and dignity of our countrymen and countrywomen are dear. I have be fore me many things I could write, but I will not. We have been in times past regarded by foreign nations as stately and severe in our bearing towards foreigners, especially to such as come among us with dubious antecedents and the vague reputation of adventurers. A prisca virtus, a kind of antique gravity, was supposed to encircle our homes and their inmates. We have not been liable to the excesses of the emotional natures which we are wont, with somewhat of supercilious compassion, to ascribe to other races. But there are those among us who are of opinion that we have of late outdone the most demonstrative, dramatic, and unguarded people among the nations of Europe.

In the midst of all these new developments of our traditional reserve, it is a consolation to turn our thoughts to the calm and perspicacious judgment of one who is the centre of all chivalrous loyalty, — the luminous example of the matronly dignity of England. What was for a while forgotten elsewhere was to be found there still in its ascendent; tranquil, discerning, and full of forbearance, though justly incensed. But I forbear to write what crowds upon me. I wish to forget it: I wish it may be forgotten by others.

And, lastly, bear with me if I say that I trust the late events will have at least one good result. The people of England have come to the knowledge of many things. And while they desire the foreign policy of England to be large, generous, and sympathising with the weak, the suffering, and the oppressed, they will desire that it shall be open, loyal, and avowed; that it be no longer, if it has ever been, if not, that it never shall be, secret, intriguing, and seditious; that if it desire to promote the unity of any people, it shall not begin by encouraging the overthrow of thrones and governments, by demolition and disorder, which pulls down all things, and builds nothing stable or lasting in its place. England, Spain, and France, the three greatest national unities in the world, arose from their original divisions by a process slow, progressive, and mature, brought about by just laws, natural changes, and the glad acceptance of the people. I see in Italy no counterpart to those providential laws and processes in the empirical and sanguinary disorders of the last fifteen years. Moreover, I see that the whole movement has involved itself in a direct conflict with the providential order by which Christendom has been sustained for these thousand years. I do not believe in its success: I believe firmly in its failure. It may be that we shall have to suffer the same miseries as our fathers suffered in the first fifteen years of this century; that all Europe

VOL. I. L will be tormented and afflicted again, until the order of the Christian world shall once more prevail.

It is to he hoped that no flatteries of our national pride will lead the people of England to accept the mission which Garibaldi holds before us; that England will not end the nineteenth century as France began it — by a career of offences against the rights of neigh bourhood which, by the law of nations, bind the commonwealth of the civilised world together.

I have a better hope in the justice of England, in its calm sense, its tardy action, its traditional love of order, its instinctive hatred of anarchy.

But, sir, I have trespassed upon you too long, and I am entering too far into a subject which it is not my calling to treat of. I believe that the visit of General Garibaldi has opened the eyes of many to the mischievous action of her Majesty's Government in Italy; and that a calm and firm return to higher and nobler principles of international law will be the result. In this I should rejoice, not more for the welfare of Italy than for the honour of the people and of the crown of England.

Thus much I felt bound to say: not from a desire to wound, or from an intention to kindle strife, but from a sorrow at the acts of many whom I have respected, many whom I love as friends, and for the sake of my country, which I love better than any friends. For I fear that the acts of a few have for a moment tarnished the splendour of its name. I am thankful that they are few; and I trust that when others shall speak out who have of late been silent, all England and all the world will know that the great English monarchy is not the aider, nor the abet tor, nor the accomplice, either before or after the fact — still less the dupe or the tool — of Mazzini or Garibaldi.

I have the honour to be, sir,

Your obedient servant,

HENRY EDWARD MANNING.

London, May 10, 1864.

Footnotes

1. Guardian newspaper, October 8, 1862. ↩