Some unpublished (in one case privately published) Letters and Papers, written by Mazzini.

I
Letter to Mr W. E. Hickson, Editor of the Westminster Review (probably in 1844).

[This letter gives some details concerning his early life, which are not mentioned in his works or in any of the biographies.]

Dear Sir,—I began to attract the attention of the Government in Italy by my literary writings. I had been pleading warmly the cause of what was then called Romanticism, and was the right of progressive life in Literature. Then, as now, all pleading for literary liberty, independence, progression, were suspected in Italy as educating the mind to forbidden tendencies. I published in 1828 a weekly literary paper the "Indicatore Genovese": it was, at the end of the year, and though published under the double ecclesiastical and temporal censorship, suppressed. I caused the paper to be continued at Leghorn under the title of "Indicatore Livornese";[47] it was, at the end of the year, suppressed again. I wrote one long article on "a European Literature" in the best of our reviews, the "Antologia" of Florence. The review was persecuted and after some time suppressed. In 1830, after the Revolution of July I was arrested. The accusation was the spreading of a secret association tending to the overthrow of the Italian Government. I recollect a fact, well apt to give a summary of our condition in Italy. My father, Professor of Anatomy in the Genoese University, went to the Governor of the town, Venanson, enquiring at the cause of my imprisonment. "Your son," he was told amongst other things, "is fond of walking every night, alone, sadly pensive, on the outskirts of the town. What on earth has he at his age to think about? We don't like young people thinking, without our knowing the subject of their thoughts." A committee of Senators was appointed, in Turin, to try me. They found no proofs, and acquitted both me and some friends who had been arrested with me. Nevertheless I was sent, in solitary confinement, at Savona, in the fortress for five months: and afterwards, sent in exile, without leave of seeing anybody, except my parents. There was no duration determined; but I was told that my subsequent conduct would shorten or prolong the time of my being an exile. I came through Savoy and Switzerland to France, at a time in which the Government of Louis Philippe, not yet acknowledged by the absolutist Governments, was active in exciting all insurrectional schemes, both in Spain and Italy. I merged, of course into them.

When the insurrection of 1831 was quenched in the Estates of the Pope, I established myself at Marseilles, and founded from there the new association "la giovine Italia." Of the distinctions to be made between this and the old Carbonari associations, I have spoken in four letters that have been printed in the "Monthly Chronicle." They—the fourth especially—I would advise you to peruse: I have not a single copy in my possession and cannot even remember the number; but they must have appeared between 1838 and 1839. The rapidity with which the Association spread evinced the justice of the fundamental views. At the beginning of 1832, the organisation was powerful throughout all Italy. As one of the main features of La Giovine Italia was to not content itself as Carbonarism did, with a secret war, but to reach insurrection through the open preaching of its belief, an organ was established at Marseilles expounding all the principles of the Association. La Giovine Italia, a review, or rather a collection of political pamphlets springing from the Association, was under my direction; and, in fact, the two-thirds of each volume were my own. The effect was really electric among our youth. From Marseilles, through the merchant-ships of our country, the captains of which were almost generally volunteering their efforts, the volumes were smuggled into Italy, where they raised the enthusiasm of the patriots to such a pitch that it was evident a general outbreak would ensue. Then, the persecutions began. Applications were made by all the Italian Governments to the French: the policy of Louis Philippe had already changed, and the most active co-operation against the Association and me was promised. Measures were taken at Marseilles against such of our exiles as were living upon the subsidies. They were sent away to the interior. But few as we were, we could, by multiplying our activity, front the task. At last, under the pretence of my being likely to be connected with the republican agitation in France, I was ordered to leave France. I protested, and claimed the common justice of a trial; but unsuccessfully. My presence at Marseilles was imperiously required by the interests of the Association; the writing, publishing, and sending to Italy the correspondencies with the country, for which Marseilles was offering every facility, the interviews with Italian patriots who flocked to Marseilles for instructions and communications, were all resting on me. I decided to stop; and concealed myself. During one year I succeeded in baffling all the activity of the French police, and of our own spies. But it was through the most rigorous seclusion you can imagine. During one year, I remember having had only twice, a breath of fresh air in the night, once dressed in woman's garb, the other as a Garde-National. At last things had reached such a point that a general rising was thought of. I left France and went to Geneva: there to await for the event, and prepare an expedition into Savoy, so as to divide the forces of the enemy and establish co-operation between the patriots in Italy and their exiles. How the hopes of an insurrection failed in Italy, the fourth of my letters in the "Monthly Chronicle" will tell you. How we too failed, through our military leader, General Ramorino, in the attempt on Savoy—an attempt I thought it our duty to realise, as a practical teaching to our countrymen, that promises, once given, are to be kept,—would now be too long to say. But a tolerably true account of the enterprise is to be found in one of the volumes of "Histoire de Dix Ans" par Louis Blanc. Meanwhile the attempt, once unsuccessful, drew upon Switzerland and à fortiori upon me, the anger of all Governments. Notes were literally showering upon the poor Swiss Cantons, where we sojourned. The most of us left Switzerland for France or England. I with few others remained. Driven away from Geneva, I went to the Canton de Vaud: driven away from there, to Berne. There, owing to the friendship of some of the members of the Government, I stopped for some time, keeping a very secluded life. At last the insistence of the foreign Embassies prevailed upon the weakness of the Bernese Government, and I was obliged to go to Solothurn. Meanwhile the principles, embodied in our writings and in our associations had awakened the sympathies of the Swiss patriots. A National Association was founded on a ground of brotherhood with our own. The persecutions with which the unwilling but weak Swiss Governments were hunting me, excited almost as much indignation as the opening of the letters here. The weakness of the Cantons had its source in the deficiency of national unity, in the detestable organisation of the Central Power, on the old Pacte Federal, forced by the Allies on Switzerland at the overthrow of Napoleon. I was requested to write a periodical advocating and unifying under our political belief, the national feelings. Funds were given. The "Jeune Suisse" was established. It appeared twice a week in French and in German, for the course of one year. Through the German exiles, and working-men, through the Tyrolese working-men, rather numerous in the Canton of Zürich, through the Italian Tessin, and the frequent contact with Italian people travelling to the frontier, the spirit of liberty began to spread again in the countries approaching Switzerland. The terrors of the Governments re-excited the persecution. They threatened Switzerland with war. German troops came to the frontier, M. Thiers was menacing to ruin Swiss commercial resources with a "blocus hermetique." We were sent away. The paper suppressed; the most horrible calumnies spread against us: all exiles left with or without compulsion. I decided to remain as long as necessary to prove to the Swiss people, that they were the slaves of the Foreign Powers, and devoid of all real liberty, of all independence. During seven months, I went from place to place, from house to house, living in places apparently empty, with mats at the windows, without even going beyond the room, except when receiving advices of the house being suspected: then with a guide, I was crossing the mountains in the night, and going to another shelter. While the Governments were raging, I received from all classes of population marks of sympathy that made and still make me consider Switzerland as a second Fatherland. Ministers [of religion] were inviting me to their houses as one of their family. [At] Grenchen, a village of a thousand inhabitants, near Solothurn, when I had spent one year, in an establishment of baths, I was, during the storm, made citizen spontaneously and without expense. The poor people, good souls of the village, believed that as a Swiss citizen, I would be respected; the grant of course, was not admitted. Still had I been alone, I would have, hardened as I was to all privations, kept on resisting; [but I was not alone] so I decided to leave and come to England. It was then that I had a correspondence with the Duke of Montebello, which ended in his sending three passports for us to a place I named; and in January or February 1837 I landed in England.

The "Giovine Italia" had six volumes published at different times. All that I have ever written concerning politics bears my name. Before I established the Association I wrote a long letter to Charles Albert, who had just then come to reign over Piedmont, remembering him of what he had promised and done, when not a king, pointing to him all the dangers of his position, the impossibility of keeping down long the spirit of the nation, the system of blood-shedding reaction to which he would soon be bound, and on the other side, the Possible, the Beautiful, the Grand, the Godlike that there would be in his putting himself at the head of the National party; the letter was printed, and signed only "An Italian." My name was then quite unknown, and would not have added the least weight to the considerations; besides, I did not believe that the "Italian People" would ever spring from under a royal cloak; and I was writing, not my own opinion, but that of many of my countrymen still fond of such a hope. I wanted to have the true intentions of the man on whom they relied, as much as possible unveiled. As soon as the letter reached him, my "signalement" was given to all the authorities of the coast, so as to have me arrested if ever I attempted to cross the frontier again.... I have been in 1833 condemned to be shot in the back by a military commission sitting in Alessandria, as having led from without the agitation. Here in London I have exerted, as I will exert, what influence I possess with my countrymen to endeavour to raise them from the nothingness and worse than nothingness in which now they are; from English affairs I have kept myself entirely separated; nor sought the help of English people even for our Italian affairs. As to all the present agitation, I had nothing to do with it, on the beginning. I did not think that the time was properly chosen. But, when the patriots of the interior decided that they would attempt, nothing of course, was left to me than helping them; and so I did, or rather prepared me to do so, should a rising take place.

It seems to me that the right of an Italian to work out from whatever place he finds himself in, the welfare of his country, ought to be clearly and boldly asserted by an English writer.

Of the hopes I have of the Italian patriots succeeding at a not very remote period, in what they are now struggling for, I cannot now speak here. It would prove too long a subject for a letter; but I am in intention, if I find time for it, of publishing very soon, a Pamphlet on the question, showing how, all weary of slow, legal, national progress being interdicted to us, our only hope must lie in insurrection as the starting-point for a national education. If there are points upon which you want more notions, be so kind as to write, and meanwhile, with sincere thanks for the interest you take in my case, believe me now dear Sir,—