It seems intended to facilitate the escape of the soldiers of King Francis into the mountain districts of the Regno, and to make those districts the focus of resistance to Victor Emmanuel.
This construction is supported by the incomprehensible conduct of France with respect to Gaeta.
If Victor Emmanuel could be conceived anxious to get hold of Francis and his family, then we could also conceive the duty or the policy of baffling him; but it is impossible that the French Government can entertain such an idea.
To keep open Gaeta on the side of the sea is to prolong suffering and bloodshed for the present—fear and insecurity for the future. Such a policy, if it be a policy, appears inhuman. I admit that, notwithstanding the unhappy affair of Savoy, and especially of Nice, the great acts done by France for Italy last year have rendered to that country an inestimable service. I do not enter into any comparative question as between the path pursued by France and that taken by England. I assume no right to be her judge. I merely write in the interest of peace, and of a fervent desire that there should be constant and cordial goodwill between France and England. Whatever susceptibility my countrymen may have shown, a consistent course on the part of the French Emperor with regard to Italy would have been acknowledged by them. They were utterly thrown abroad by the terms of Villafranca; but they, perhaps, did not then make sufficient allowance for difficulties, and they were pleased to see that Zurich was an amendment upon the prior proceeding. But what is it possible to say or think or urge when the Sardinian force is only permitted to conduct one-half a siege, and when (as I am told) the French have either secured the passage, or themselves actually carried provisions into Gaeta?
Before these unhappy proceedings, the English mind was getting rapidly clear of its prepossessions. The publication of the Treaty, in which the Emperor has behaved so admirably, will do an infinity of good—or will, at any rate, lay the ground for it—and this will grow as the terms of it are better understood. Why is an opportunity to be made for the light-minded and the evil-minded to point to other ambiguities or conduct on questions in which it is of such vast importance that France and England should have a common feeling?
Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
W. E. Gladstone.”
“11, Downing Street,
Whitehall,