"The city is in immense confusion—crowded, picturesque, almost mad. Foreigners seem to outnumber the Neapolitans, and the red jacket every other colored cloth. Such a Babel is every public place that I imagine myself to be living some thousand years back—Englishmen just arrived, hob-nobbing with Italians, whose only common lingo is that of the fingers. Many of our countrymen came on Tuesday, and I watched some of them carrying on a most animated, though purely gesticulatory, conversation with Frenchmen yesterday morning."
After the peaceful and triumphal entry of Garibaldi into Naples, new rumors were put into circulation of a pretended disagreement between him and the King of Sardinia. These were most satisfactorily refuted by the measures which the victorious general adopted immediately afterward. On the 14th of July, he proclaimed the government of Victor Emanuel, placed all the ships of war and commerce, the arsenals and materials of marine, by decree, at the disposal of Sardinia, and put them into the hands of Admiral Persaro; the portfolio of the interior was confirmed to Liborio Romano, the only member of the late ministry who enjoyed the confidence of the people. The choice of Scialoia, who had already left Genoa to assume the ministry of finance, was very generally applauded. Two battalions of genuine Piedmontese Bersaglieri were landed from the Sardinian men-of-war, and took possession of the Darsena. Telegraphic orders were sent for two more Piedmontese regiments to garrison the Neapolitan forts. By taking the Neapolitan marine under its command, and occupying the strongholds, dockyards and arsenals about this place, the Sardinian government committed itself more openly to the annexation of these kingdoms than it ever dared to do in the case of Tuscany or Romagna last year. And all these measures were taken not only with the consent but by the express desire of Garibaldi, who certainly exhibited no apprehension that the king's government would interfere with his vast undertakings.
The extreme joy with which the news of Garibaldi's entrance into Naples was received by all classes and parties, from Messina to the Alps, can be best understood by those who know the detestation with which the oppression and vindictive cruelty of the late government were universally regarded. This feeling was greatly increased by the disappointment of the nation in all those hopes to which the death of Ferdinand had given birth, and the conviction that his successor was determined to tread in his father's steps rather than enter sincerely on any new course. When Francis II. ascended the throne, it was felt that a young monarch, above all, one educated as he had been, had every claim to public consideration, and very sincere hopes were for the time entertained, that he would cease to follow the beaten track of Bourbon perjury and despotism, and frankly identify himself with the wants and aspirations of his country. Possessing, through his mother, a considerable hold on the affections of his subjects, and succeeding a sovereign who was detested by his people, he had an excellent position, and by a judicious system of even moderate reforms, might have conciliated all parties and opposed a successful barrier to the tide of revolution that was soon to sweep over the landmarks of Italy.
The amnesty was followed by a "circular" which struck at its very root and replaced thousands under the surveillance of the police. Then came the infamous and illegal deportation to Capri of men who had never been put upon their trial, and upon whose liberation England had insisted, through her minister, in the strongest terms. A system was pursued that has been characterized as a perpetual violation of all law, and a practical denial of Christianity.
The general satisfaction felt by the people of Naples after Garibaldi's arrival amounted to enthusiasm. An Englishman, writing from that city on the 14th of July, thus described the aspect of the people:
"I do not know Naples now, so changed is its aspect. Faces that I have not seen for twelve years appear in every street and square. They have come from foreign exile; from confinement in some frontier town or village; from some voluntary lurking place, the retirement to which was their only security from persecution; from the prison and the bagnio; all have met together again, by hundreds and thousands, in the capital of what was once the two Sicilies. Revolution is said to turn the dregs uppermost; yet the appearance and manner of those who now appear on the scene contradict the common proverb. In their very attitude, there is an air of self-respect and independence to which I have long been a stranger. I do not see the assumption or the swagger of the overbearing, or the timidity of the man who leaves his friend, and walks on before, because a spy is coming, or whispers and looks over his shoulder for fear that such a person is listening. No; all this has passed away, and I meet erect, independent men. My life here has brought me, too, into frequent intercourse with them; and, accustomed as I have been to the trivialities and the nullities rendered at first necessary, and afterward habitual, by despotism, I have been astonished at the new tone of thought and conversation. The Neapolitans now reason and talk like men, and there is a degree of self-restraint about them which is in the highest degree creditable after the sufferings to which they have been so long exposed. It is clear that the intellect of the country has for years been out of it, or in seclusion, or in imprisonment. Nor is this to be wondered at, when ignorance was rewarded and learning discouraged by those twins of darkness, the sovereign and the clergy, and the only hopes of the Bourbons and the Vatican depend upon brutalizing the national mind. Ferdinand II. it was who interrupted a father describing the acquirements of his son by saying, 'Better he had a stone round his neck, and be thrown into the sea;' and it was a priest who held a high public office, who checked a person indulging in a similar style of speaking by saying that it would be well for the rising generation to be 'little asses and little saints.' These times are, however, passing away; heaven grant that the light of freedom and intelligence may not dazzle the as yet unaccustomed vision of the natives.
"We have likenesses of Victor Emanuel and of Garibaldi in every shop window, and multitudes crowd around them to admire; in short, there is at present a furia for the Re Galantuomo and the Hero of Sicily."
The prisons of the police were thus described by the same writer:
"I yesterday saw some of them. Several members of the commission appointed to close them—themselves once prisoners here—accompanied me. A grated door led down to an ante-chamber, which was lighted only through these bars. Stone walls, stone floor—stone everywhere, except the ground, which was covered over with burnt fragments of books, that had been taken in domiciliary visits and destroyed here. 'Here one breathes,' said a pardoned prisoner; 'but bring a light,' he said to a jailer, and we descended from this twilight room into another which received the reflection of the twilight through a hole in the door. It was small and of stone—nothing but stone—and on the right I observed a stone bed three feet high from the ground, with an elevation of stone called a pillow. A door is opened and leads into another room, where no twilight, no reflected twilight, nor a ray of light nor a breath of air can penetrate. 'I was imprisoned here,' said one of my conductors. I looked at him as if expecting to find that he was turned into a brute beast, for it was a den for a wild animal, not a chamber for a Christian man, in a country teeming with Christ's ministers, and where the holy Apostolic Catholic religion is the only one permitted to be professed. In some parts a man could not stand upright, so that there he lay in Stygian darkness, without any change of air, 'and on bare ground,' said my friend, 'unless he could afford to pay an extortionate price for a mattress, to a licensed spy and denouncer, who drove a good trade in human misery.' 'Let us leave this den,' I said, and so we groped back into the chamber where the reflection of twilight penetrated. 'Take care,' cried the jailer, as I stumbled over a mountain of old books and papers. On the opposite side was another criminale about eleven by five palms, where five or six persons were at times confined. The smell of the prison was insufferable. Now mark, who were the men confined in these places not fit for beasts? Not condemned criminals; no! but men arrested on suspicion and waiting for an order for their committal—men of rank and education accustomed to the comforts of a home."
The following passages from a letter written at Florence, are very appropriate in this place: