“Palermo, May 21st, 1851.
“Dear Mr. Panizzi,
I am very thankful for your kind, interesting, though melancholy letter of the 24th ult., but which only reached me yesterday evening, and as our post goes tomorrow, I have but little time to say anything. But the main question you have treated is so important and big with all sorts of consequences, that I cannot refrain from immediately touching on it. I translated that portion relating to Naples, and took it to the Lord Lieutenant, who will forthwith send it to Naples, and ask for some official document in return. He at once, as I was sure he could with a safe conscience, denied the truth of the main charges. That the prisons are in a very unsatisfactory state, cannot be denied, and is sadly to be lamented. But reforms are almost always tedious and difficult. In what condition were the prisons in England some fifty years ago? Yet the King is by no means unmindful of them, and the female prisons have been thoroughly amended. They are now in the hands of the Jesuits and the Sisters of Charity.... But the iniquities of the Judicial system, as applied to State prisoners, is the great offence. Now, from what I had heard from Sir William Temple myself and from others, and what I hear now from the good Prince who rules this island, I am thoroughly convinced that Mr. Gladstone has been deceived by false testimony. The King’s government is the least vindictive it is possible to conceive; before 1848 there was not one State prisoner in Naples, and before the Revolution here, there had not been one single capital execution for six years. So much the worse you will say, and so say I. It was this mistaken leniency that wrought out half of the social mischief. Remember the trials are all public, the witnesses are examined in public, the proceedings are published in the public papers, and out of the thousands who have offended, very few are arrested and tried. The proceedings are slow for the purpose of giving, not violating justice, ... Sir W. Temple told me all that you have now asserted on the authority of Mr. Gladstone and Sir W. Molesworth, and he added that of all the liberal side of the late Chamber of Deputies there was not one who was not either an exile or a prisoner. I was horrified at the statement, and went forthwith to a most respectable English Resident, who knew Naples well: he immediately said, ‘That is false, to my own knowledge, for I am acquainted with several who are neither one nor the other.’ But the truth is that Sir W. Temple is mystified, and thus mystified others. He and Lord Napier, and all the Consuls, and all the travelling Ministers (such as Lord Minto) are, and have been ever in the hands of the Revolutionary Party, and are duped by them, and I am confident that Mr. Gladstone’s evidence will turn out of the same quality. After all, who were the liberals’ deputies?—who the men who infuriated the people on the 15th of May, and overturned the Constitution? They were Red Republicans, sworn to dethrone the Sovereign. Would they have been better treated in Ireland than in Naples?... The Revolution here was nothing but a history of atrocious crime and atrocious tyranny—regular mob-law exercised by a mob of armed banditti. There is no more honourable or humane or upright a man than Filangieri, nor a more humane and upright and honourable a Prince than his Sovereign; but, as M. Fortunato told Baillie Cochrane, ‘the characters of the Sovereign and his servants are sacrificed to the calumnies spread abroad in Naples,’ by those who ought to know better. No man reverences Liberty more than I do, or sees, and hates the evils of despotism; but mob-law is the greatest evil of all, and this, so far, has been the only blessing which so-called Constitutional liberty has hitherto brought to poor ill-fated Italy....
Very truly and sincerely yours,
Shrewsbury.”
And, at the risk of exceeding our limits of space, Panizzi’s reply must be given in full:—
“British Museum, June 4th, 1851.
“My dear Lord,
The day before yesterday I had the honour to receive your Lordship’s letter of the 21st of last month. I need not add that I am very much obliged to your Lordship for it. As your Lordship observes, the points now the chief subjects of our correspondence are so very important that I hope you will forgive me if I take the liberty of freely expressing my opinion when I am so unfortunate as to differ from your Lordship; for on such subjects flattery, and even over-deference, are a crime. It is the more necessary that I should, with due respect, but freely, express my dissent, when requisite, from your Lordship’s conclusions, as the opinion of your Lordship, and a correct knowledge of the facts on your part may lead to very important consequences.
I need not state it especially and prominently, perhaps, but ad abundantiam I wish it to be well understood, that in what I am going to say I mean nothing disrespectful towards His Sicilian Majesty, whom I supposed to be moved only by a sincere desire of performing the duties of his high station as a Christian Prince. I give him, therefore, credit for the very best intentions, and I trust I am not wrong in supposing that, far from feeling offended with those who, like myself, strive to open his eyes to the real state of his Government (supposing the opinions and statements of so humble a person like myself were to be known to his Majesty), he would feel thankful. As to the Prince of Satriano, I cannot figure to myself a Filangieri otherwise than humane, high-minded, and a lover of truth and justice. It is a name of which an Italian must be proud....