“It is not, however, our intention to vie with the miserable cunning of your enemies—enemies of the faith—of that very faith which they profess to venerate. But placed, as it is our fortune, by your side, and seeing the malignity of those who attack you, and the disloyal character of their attacks, we feel bound to gather ourselves at the foot of your twofold throne, with vows for the integrity of your independent sovereignty; and once more offering you our whole selves, too happy if this manifestation of our fidelity may sweeten the bitterness with which your Holiness is afflicted, and if you are pleased to accept our offerings. Thus may Europe, deceived by so many perverse writings, be thoroughly convinced that if the nobility have hitherto been restrained from the expression of their desires by respect and the fear of throwing any obstacle in the way of a happy solution, so anxiously desired, they have not the less retained them, and expressed them as individuals; [pg 187] and that they, this day, unite to declare them, heartily and sincerely pledging to them before all the world their honor and their faith.
“Accept, Holy Father, Pontiff and King, this energetic protest and the unlimited devotedness which the nobles of Rome offer in reverence to your Sceptre, no less than to your Pastoral staff.”—(In the Weekly Register of January 28, 1860, from the Giornale di Roma.)
The like loyal and patriotic feeling was manifested throughout all the cities and provinces of the Papal States. One of the most eminent of liberal British statesmen, the Marquis of Normanby, bears witness to the fact that very few of the citizens of Bologna could be compelled, even at the point of the sword, to express adherence to the revolution. A portion of the periodical press labored to keep such facts as these out of view. But they would have required better evidence than they were ever able to produce in order to convince reasonable and reflecting men that people, blessed with so great a degree of material prosperity as the subjects of the Pope and the other Princes of Italy, were anxious to see radical changes introduced into the governments under which they were so favored. That they were highly prosperous and but slightly taxed, many distinguished travellers, members of both houses of the British parliament, and others bear witness. None will question the evidence of these facts which are known on the authority of such men as the Marquis of Normanby and his Excellency the Earl of Carlisle. The Hon. Mr. Pope Hennessey stated in the House of Commons: “That the national prosperity of the States of the Church and of Austria had become greater, year after year, than that of Sardinia (where a sort of revolutionary constitution had been established), and that documents existed in the Foreign Office, in the shape of reports from our own consuls, which proved it, with respect to commercial interests in Sardinia. Mr. Erskine, our minister at Turin, in a despatch of January 7, 1856, gave a very unfavorable view of the manufacturing, mining and agricultural progress of Sardinia. [pg 188] But from Venetia, Mr. Elliott gave a perfectly opposite view, showing that great progress was being made there. The shipping trade of Sardinia with England had declined 2,000 tons. But the British trade with Ancona had increased 21,000 tons, and with Venice 25,000 tons, in the course of the last two years. He attributed these results to the increase of taxation in Sardinia, through the introduction of the constitutional (the Sardinian institutional) system of government, and to the comparatively easy taxation of Venetia. The increased taxation of Sardinia from 1847 to 1857 was no less than 50,000,000 francs. With respect to education in the Papal States, he contended that it was more diffused than it was in this country—Great Britain.”
In countries that were so prosperous, every man literally “sitting under his own vine and his own fig-tree,” it is difficult to believe that there was wide-spread discontent and a general desire for radical changes. To prove that there was, it would have required evidence of no ordinary weight. All testimony that can be relied on shows a very different state of feeling. Lord John Russell, in his too memorable Aberdeen speech, gave expression to an opinion which, through the labors of the newspaper press, had become very prevalent in England, that “under their provisional revolutionary governments the people of Central Italy had conducted themselves with perfect order, just as if they had been the citizens of a country that had long enjoyed free institutions.”
The Marquis of Normanby, in his place in the British House of Peers, made reply to this allegation:[5]
“I should like to know where the noble Lord found that information. There is not in Central Italy a single government that has resulted from popular election. They were all named by Piedmont—which had, as it were, packed the cards. Liberty of speech there was none, nor liberty of the press, nor personal liberty.... The Grand Duchess of Parma was expelled by a Piedmontese army, and restored by the spontaneous call of her people. She left the country, declaring that she would suffer everything sooner than expose her subjects to the horrors of civil war.... Numberless atrocities have been committed under the rule of these governments which, according to my noble friend, are so wise and orderly. I read to you the first day of this session the letter of a Tuscan, whose character is irreproachable. Since that time I have received from him another letter, in which he says: ‘You will not be surprised to learn that my letter to you has been the occasion of the coarsest invectives. For what reason I cannot tell, if it was not because it spoke the truth.’
“Here is a second letter, which I received a few days ago from an English merchant of the highest standing at Leghorn: ‘No intervention is allowed in Tuscany; and nevertheless, my Lord, intervention appears everywhere; even armed and foreign intervention. The governor-general is a Piedmontese; the minister of war is a Piedmontese; the commander of the armed police is a Piedmontese; the military governor of Leghorn is a Piedmontese; the captain of the port is a Piedmontese; without reckoning a great number of other functionaries of the same nation. This is what I call armed and foreign intervention. Let us be disembarrassed of all this; let [pg 190] us be free from the despotic pressure of this government, and the great majority of the country would vote the restoration of the House of Lorraine. Almost all the army would be for the Grand Duke, and on this account it is kept at a distance from Tuscany. I can say the same of two-thirds of the national guard. All the Great Powers have observed strict neutrality here, inasmuch as they have not been present at any ceremony which could be looked upon as a recognition of the existing government. But since the peace of Villafranca, the English agents have taken part in all the ceremonies, in all the balls.’ Assuredly, thus to recognize such a government is far from being faithful to the assurance given last session by the noble Lord at the head of the foreign department (cheers).”
Lord Normanby's trustworthy correspondent says, moreover, in the letter referred to, that the Tuscan troops being kept at a distance from Tuscany, the people dreaded making any demonstration, being well aware that an imprudent word would be punished with imprisonment. “At Leghorn, however, some private meetings were held, at which influential persons were present. Public meetings are impossible. Twenty-three members of the assembly asked that it should be convened. This was refused them. At the private meetings, however, it was decided that Ferdinand IV. should be recalled, on condition of granting a constitution and an amnesty. The people have been dreadfully deceived. All promises have been violated, the price of provisions has risen, the national debt has been enormously increased.”
Lord Normanby also laid before the House of Peers the testimony of a distinguished Italian writer, Signor Amperi, whom he described as a man of high character. This gentleman addressed the governments of Central Italy in the following terms:
“The false position in which you have placed yourselves has reduced you to the necessity, in times of liberty, as you pretend, but of false liberty, as I conceive, to make falsehood a system of government. Of the promises of Victor Emmanuel [pg 191] that he would sustain before the Great Powers the vote of the Tuscan Assembly, you have made a formal accepting for himself of this vote, and, in order to deceive the ignorant multitude, you ordered public rejoicings in honor of a fact which you knew to be false. You declared yourselves the ministers of a king who had not appointed you. You administer the government in his name; you give judgments in his name; you pledge the public faith of a sovereign who has given you no commission to do any such thing; and although you forced the Tuscans to acknowledge him for king, you despise his authority to such an extent as to impose upon him the choice of a regent. What right have you to do this, if he be really king, and if he be not, is your right any better founded?”