Carlo Poerio.”
While on the subject of Southern Italy we may remind our readers that there has been frequent mention made above of a gentleman, who, as a constant friend and correspondent of Panizzi, and as a prominent personage in Neapolitan matters, demands some further notice. Mr., afterwards Sir James Lacaita, was, previously to the year 1850, legal adviser to the British Legation at Naples. In this position, by his great official capacity, and by his well-proved exemplary character, he succeeded in gaining the friendship of Sir William Temple. He had the further good fortune to make the acquaintance of Mr. Gladstone, at the house of Lord Leven, who was spending a winter at Naples. This acquaintance soon ripened into intimacy, a consequence which was almost a matter of course, for Lacaita was well fitted to win the confidence and attract the liking of those who, themselves possessed of merit, could discover and value merit in others. Endowed with distinguished abilities, and a master of the English language; in political matters of sound and matured judgment, and (as will hereafter be seen) of unassailable honour and integrity; such very exceptional characteristics soon marked him out for invidious distinction by the partisans of King Bomba. On the 26th of December, 1850, he was arrested in the street as a dangerous person and thrown into prison. All his papers were ordered to be examined in his presence; but, Sir William Temple having requested the “Attaché” of the Legation, Mr. Fagan, to claim as many of these as possible in the name of Her Britannic Majesty’s Government, a large proportion was thereby saved.
A certain note, however, which originated in a mere joke, was detained, and turned out to be the innocent cause of serious trouble. Previously to his arrest, Lacaita, in conjunction with Lord and Lady Leven and their three daughters, had planned a tour for eight days to La Cava, Salerno and Amalfi. In sportive mood it was laid down by the “tourists” that no authority of one over the other was to be recognised amongst the members of this party, and to distinguish nominally the perfect freedom and equality of the society, they dubbed themselves the “Republic.” It must have been with mingled feelings of indignation and gratification that the police discovered amongst the confiscated papers a note written by Lady Anne Melville, after the return from the tour, containing the words, Will you come to tea, and talk over the grand Republican days? In vain was it explained to the authorities that the note had no political significance, but the suspicious adjective was merely playful reference to the little temporary republic of “tourists,” and to no dangerous revolutionary organisation.
Either lacking a natural sense of humour, or holding jocosity to be impossible in so grave a matter as anything Republican in the then state of Italian politics, they altogether rejected this, to them, fanciful interpretation. The letter was registered (it is still in the archives of the Criminal Court of Naples), and formed one of the chief grounds for the charge of sedition and conspiracy brought against Lacaita.
In the summer of 1860, Cavour, well aware of the negotiations that were being carried on between England, France and Naples, and desirous of obtaining some trustworthy person to watch his interests, and supply him with information—and being, moreover, unable, for reasons which may be easily understood, to charge his own Minister, the Marquis d’Azeglio, with the mission—applied to Lacaita, who, on receiving the message, although laid up with severe illness, immediately rose from his bed and went straight to Lord Russell’s house. His Lordship, having an engagement with the Neapolitan Minister, had given direction that no person whatever should be admitted. Sir James, however, being intimate with the family, managed to see his Lordship, and was able there and then to turn the current of affairs in a totally different direction, and to prevent the French Ambassador Count Persigny, and his Neapolitan colleague the Marquis La Greca, from carrying out their plans. Had it not been for Sir James Lacaita’s prompt and skilful intervention, England would doubtless have been remitted to the position she had held in 1848.
Nothing now remained to those whom Lacaita had thus thwarted but to win him over to the side of Francis II., and this it was thought might be effected by offering him the post of Minister at the Court of St. James’s, in the room of Count Ludolf. The chief instrument employed for the conversion of this dangerous opponent was Signor Giovanni Manna, the Neapolitan Minister of Finance, who was now at Paris, whither he had been sent to negotiate a loan. Manna, who was a personal friend of Lacaita’s, started from Paris in August with the sole object of persuading him to accept the offer; holding out as a further inducement to a change of opinion a considerable bonus, besides a not insignificant salary and the title of Marquis, which might well be regarded as superseding the inferior rank of knighthood which had already been conferred upon him.
The unification of Italy was regarded by most politicians of the time, Lacaita included, as, to say the least of it, a remote possibility. To the King’s offer, and the numerous advantages accompanying it, Lacaita simply replied, This is bribery. In this conclusion he was supported by the advice of two distinguished statesmen, Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Gladstone, and by a letter from Panizzi (dated Homburg, 23rd of August, 1860), which did not reach him until a few days after his refusal of the post:—
“... I willingly comply with your request, and frankly give you the advice which you ask on the point which you truly describe as delicate and knotty—that is, whether you ought to accept the appointment as Minister of His Sicilian Majesty at the Court of St. James’s.
“As Minister of that King you must first of all oppose the enterprise of Garibaldi, who wishes to unite the whole of Italy under one sole head, and if that head should be Victor Emmanuel, you, Sir James Lacaita, would have to support an abominable and cruel scion of an execrated race against the only Sovereign who has shown that he is an Italian; in fact, you would have to help in cutting up Italy. I do not presume to judge those gentlemen who have undertaken to serve his said Neapolitan Majesty; but they were on the spot, had served—at least some of them—the dynasty, and perhaps had not duly considered before they accepted their posts. But are you, who are free, and in your sober senses, to serve a Bourbon like him of Naples? Are you to stand by the side of those who proclaimed martial law?—you to join a Government which now shoots down the noblest Italians who have liberated Sicily from a detested yoke? No one cui sanum sinciput can believe that the King of Naples is to be trusted, when he gives utterance to the sentiments which he now pretends to profess, and every one who is not bereft of sense knows and feels that the man is still the faithful and true ally of Austria, the tool of the harsh stepmother, the blind and abject slave of the priesthood which has made Rome a sewer. And would you give your honoured name, your influence, your talents to a man without affection and without faith like that King? My dear Lacaita, that name, that influence, those talents belong to Italy and to an honourable King, not to a schismatic party—not to a perfidious and treacherous perjurer.
“I use strong expressions: the case justifies them. You may show this letter of mine to any one you please, and tell what I think without any reserve whatever!...”