"5. As regards Sicily, we will grant it analogous representative institutions, such as to satisfy the wants of the island; and one of the princes of our royal house shall be our viceroy.
"Portici, June 25, 1860."
A letter from Naples of that date, said:
"Wrung from the sovereign as have been these concessions, against his inclinations and convictions, if his majesty can be said to have any, and known as all these facts are, the decree was received with the greatest indifference. People read it on the walls and passed on. I have not heard one cry of pleasure raised, but I have heard official people say. 'Too late! What a pity that it was not given six months ago.' It was the concession of one with his back to the wall, and who may hereafter say, as Ferdinand II. said, that he yielded on compulsion, and it was not binding.
"An order was given for the immediate release of the political prisoners in Santa Maria Apparente, and a steamer, hired by their friends, went to Capri to-day to bring back the victims of a long and cruel persecution."
Everywhere this decree was regarded in the same manner. The celebrated Poerio, who had been released from a long and cruel imprisonment a few months before, for supporting the constitution to which the father of the present King of Naples had himself sworn, was at this time a member of the House of Deputies of Sardinia, and in a speech said:
"The traditions of the Neapolitan government are hereditary perjury. The new king, almost to prove the legitimacy of his descent, is preparing to perjure himself; and, in order to qualify himself for the task of forswearing himself, he must first swear. It is with that view that he declares himself ready to swear constitutions and alliances. His object in proposing an alliance with the king's government is obvious. He is only meditating the reconquest of Sicily. These are the old fox-like wiles of the Neapolitan government. As these have thrice availed them, they hope, even now, from the same arts, to attain the same results. But if these are very clearly the intentions of the government of Naples, there is also no doubt but the government of the king—of that king who for the last twelve years has held aloft the banner of Italian nationality, will never desert his post, never will associate itself with a faith-breaking government, a government by the nature of its very institutions an implacable foe to Italian regeneration."
The following is an extract from the letter of an English lady in Florence:
"The details that have reached here, through both private and public information, of the horrible sufferings endured by the Sicilians, are enough to account for the fiendish hatred excited by the Neapolitans, whose conduct to the unfortunate islanders is almost a repetition of the frightful barbarities of the Indians during the late war, for neither sex, age, nor innocence, are any protection against the perpetration of the most awful atrocities. It is beyond belief that, in the nineteenth century, in a Christian part of Europe, there have been scenes enacted within the last few months that renew the days of the Inquisition. A gentleman, residing in Florence, has received intelligence of his family in Sicily, giving details of the sufferings of his brother, who was subjected to a 'torture' that even surpassed all the refined cruelty that was ever imagined by Ximenes and his inquisitorial establishment, having been chained to a copper chair, under the seat of which was lighted a charcoal fire! This is only one of the many incidents that have taken place—incidents that make the cheek grow pale, even to hear of. No wonder there has been such a burst of enthusiasm throughout all Europe for Garibaldi and his noble expedition. Every civilized land has echoed the bell which has been tolled in Italy for the annihilation of despotism. There has not been raised one sympathetic voice to cry to Francis of Naples, 'Hear it not Duncan, for it summons thee' to join the circle of deposed tyrants that have sought asylums within such short distances of each other, imitating the instinct of the featherly tribe, who only seek society with companions of the same color."
The feelings of the people of Naples cannot be imagined, without some knowledge of the cruelties of the government. The following shocking account of the cruelty practised on a man who was called an American, by the priests of Rome and Italy, is from a letter written in Naples, just after the revolution, by a person who saw him and obtained from him since his own story: