Of that evidence Mr. Scarlett, the chargé d’affaires, writes to Earl Granville ** that, “All the witnesses concur, more or less, in bearing out Mather’s statement.
** Official Papers, No. 18.
None are in contradiction with it. Perhaps the most important evidence is that of Pini, which exactly corroborates Mather’s statement, and certainly there is not a single syllable, from first to last, at variance with it.” Thus speaks Giovanni Pini, the important witness of the scene of blood and outrage:—“On the day in question, about twelve o’clock, more or less, I was in the Via Martelli, about half way down, when I heard coming towards me the Austrian military band, which was accompanying, as usual, the detachment intended to relieve the guard of the city. As soon as the band had passed, I stationed myself on the path where the people were, that is between the band and the soldiers who were behind. The street being rather narrow the people who were close by the band, I may say in a crowd, were pressing upon each other. A few steps further on I observed an Austrian officer, who had a cap on, and was therefore at the time off duty, strike, with his left hand, a young man who was on that side of him, with a blow which hit him on the face, and I suppose it was given with some force, for the young man who received it staggered backwards; and I observed that, as soon as he had recovered himself, another Austrian officer, who was the one at the head of the soldiers, and marching with them with his drawn sword, strike with it the same young man on the head, inflicting a wound on his forehead, from which blood began to flow in such quantities, as wine from a broken bottle. I immediately ran to the assistance of the poor youth, who had been so unreasonably ill-treated, since I could not find that he had offended the soldiers in any manner. Besides myself he was assisted by a gentleman who showed that he was his brother, although he could not speak Italian, and a Frenchman whom I do not know. There was also a priest, who was moreover unknown to me. There were other persons, also, who witnessed the transaction like myself, but I could not discover among them any of my acquaintance. The wounded person, whom I understood to be an Englishman, signified to me his gratitude for the assistance I had afforded him, but said little, as he spoke only in his own language to his brother, who started off from us immediately in order to look at the officer, who had inflicted the wound, so as to be able to recognise him, and then came back directly. He overtook the officer at the Piazza del Duomo, because the detachment was going towards the Piazza del Gran Duca. I and the brother of the wounded man then conveyed him to the first doctor’s shop, which is on the Piazza del Duomo, at the corner of the Via Martelli; but, finding that the apothecary could not treat him, we went off forthwith to the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, where the wounded man, having lost much blood, fainted away, and after having been brought to, was put into bed.... From the wounded man himself, as well as from the medical men who were attending in the room, I heard that if the Englishman had not had on his head a rather stout hat, he might have been killed on the spot; but I do not know how deep the wound was.” *
* Page 51 of Official Papers.
Francis Catani, a priest, also gave evidence, to a certain extent, to the same effect, and added, “that he had heard that if the Englishman had not had his hat on his head he would have been killed on the spot, for it was that which alone protected him.”
And the Senator Giuseppe Vai states that “the young Englishman went aside quickly towards the end of my house, the Casa Marchesini, or perhaps rather under it, and at the same time I heard that a few words were rapidly exchanged between them, which I did not understand, because I was too high up to be able to distinguish them (he was at an upper window of his house), and also because the band was making a noise, and at the same moment I saw that the said officer, raising his sabre, gave the young man a blow on the forehead with it, using the cutting edge, by which the latter fell down upon the step by the wall of’ the Casa Marchesini, but with almost the rapidity of lightning he got up again, and when he was standing I saw the blood was flowing from the place where he was struck.... Because this act produced upon me a disagreeable impression I withdrew from the window.”
These extracts of evidence demonstrate the guilty nature of the outrage, and the careful and truthful statement of the young Englishman, as well as his cool and courageous conduct in a case at the time apparently so desperate.
Mr. Mather, the father of these youths, immediately left England for Florence, and, as he passed through London, laid the case before the foreign minister, as far as the detail had reached him by the letters of the younger brother, which were handed to the minister. He arrived at Florence after his son had been three weeks in the hospital; part of that time in a dangerous state. The kind attention and the great skill of the medical officers of that magnificent Florentine institution were doubtless the chief causes of his recovery. The conduct of these young Englishmen under such trying circumstances has been praised by almost every political writer who took an interest in the subject, and there seemed only one opinion throughout the country, that their coolness, courage, and endurance, under great difficulties and personal dangers, could not have been surpassed by the bravest and most experienced men.
Lord Palmerston, after the publication of the Official Papers, on reviewing the whole facts of the case, in a debate upon it in parliament, declared “that he found much to criticise in almost all the parties concerned, except Mr. Mather and his sons.” *
* House of Commons debate, June 14,1853.