Mr. Gladstone also said, that the question had been asked, whether a government "could be induced to change its policy, because some individual or other had by lying accusations held it up to the hatred of mankind," yet he had the satisfaction of knowing that upon the challenge of a mere individual, the government of Naples had been compelled to plead before the tribunal of general opinion, and to admit the jurisdiction of that tribunal. It was to public sentiment that the Neapolitan Government was paying deference when it resolved on the manly course of a judicial reply; and he hoped that further deference would be paid to that public sentiment in the complete reform of its departments and the whole future management of its affairs.
After a consideration of the political position of the throne of the Two Sicilies, in connection with its dominions on the mainland, Mr. Gladstone thus concluded his examination of the official reply of the Neapolitan Government: "These pages have been written in the hope that, by thus making, through the press, rather than in another mode, that rejoinder to the Neapolitan reply which was doubtless due from me, I might still, as far as depended on me, keep the question on its true ground, as one not of politics but of morality, and not of England but of Christendom and of mankind. Again I express the hope that this may be my closing word. I express the hope that it may not become a hard necessity to keep this controversy alive until it reaches its one only possible issue, which no power of man can permanently intercept. I express the hope that while there is time, while there is quiet, while dignity may yet be saved in showing mercy, and in the blessed work of restoring Justice to her seat, the Government of Naples may set its hand in earnest to the work of real and searching, however quiet and unostentatious, reform; that it may not become unavoidable to reiterate these appeals from the hand of power to the one common heart of mankind; to produce these painful documents, those harrowing descriptions, which might be supplied in rank abundance, of which I have scarcely given the faintest idea or sketch, and which, if laid from time to time before the world, would bear down like a deluge every effort at apology or palliation, and would cause all that has recently been made known to be forgotten and eclipsed in deeper horrors yet; lest the strength of offended and indignant humanity should rise up as a giant refreshed with wine, and, while sweeping away these abominations from the eye of Heaven, should sweep away along with them things pure and honest, ancient, venerable, salutary to mankind, crowned with the glories of the past and still capable of bearing future fruit."
The original purpose of these letters, though at first not gained, was unmistakable in the subsequent revolution which created a regenerated, free and united Italy. The moral influence of such an exposure was incalculable and eventually irresistible. The great Italian patriot and liberator of Italy, General Garibaldi, was known to say that Mr. Gladstone's protest "sounded the first trumpet call of Italian liberty." If France and England had unitedly protested against the Neapolitan abuse of power and violation of law, such a protest would have been heard and redress granted, but such joint action was not taken. The letters reached the fourteenth edition and in this edition Mr. Gladstone said that by a royal decree, issued December 27, 1858, ninety-one political prisoners had their punishment commuted into perpetual exile from the kingdom of the two Sicilies, but that a Ministerial order of January 9, 1859, directed that they should be conveyed to America; that of these ninety-one persons no less than fourteen had died long before in dungeons, and that only sixty-six of them embarked January 16, 1859, and were taken to Cadiz, where they were shipped on board an American sailing vessel, which was to have carried them to New York, but eventually landed them at Cork. "Eleven men were kept behind, either because it was afterwards thought advisable not to release them, as in the case of Longo and Delli Franci, two artillery officers, who were still in the dungeons of Gaeta. Whenever the prisoners were too sick to be moved, as was the case with Pironti, who was paralytic; or because they were in some provincial dungeons too remote from Naples." Such was the fate of some of the patriots officially liberated by Ferdinand's successor, Francis II.
The charges of Mr. Gladstone against the Neapolitan Government met with confirmation from another source nearer home. In 1851 Mr. Gladstone translated and published Farini's important and bulky work, entitled, "The Roman State, from 1815 to 1850." The author, Farini, addressed a note to his translator, in which he said that he had dedicated the concluding volume of his work to Mr. Gladstone, who, by his love of Italian letters, and by his deeds of Italian charity, had established a relationship with Italy in the spirit of those great Italian writers who had been their masters in eloquence, in civil philosophy and in national virtue, from Dante and Macchivelli down to Alfieri and Gioberti. Signor Farini endorsed the charges made by Mr. Gladstone against the Neapolitan Government. He wrote: "The scandalous trials for high treason still continue at Naples; accusers, examiners, judges, false witnesses, all are bought; the prisons, those tombs of the living, are full; two thousand citizens of all ranks and conditions are already condemned to the dungeons, as many to confinement, double that number to exile; the majority guilty of no crime but that of having believed in the oaths made by Ferdinand II. But, in truth, nothing more was needed to press home the indictment."
At the period of Mr. Gladstone's visit to Naples there was a growing sentiment throughout Italy for Italian independence and union. The infamous measures adopted by the King of Naples to repress in his own dominions every aspiration after freedom, only succeeded in making the people more determined and the liberty for which they sighed surer in the end. His system of misgovernment went on for a few years longer and was the promoting cause of the revolutionary movements which continually disturbed the whole Italian peninsula. A conference was held in Paris upon the Italian question, which failed to accomplish anything, against which failure Count Cavour addressed a protest to the French and British Governments in April, 1856. Afterwards the King of Naples and his Ministers were remonstrated with, but this was of no avail, only drawing forth an assertion that the sovereign had the right to deal with his own subjects as he pleased. France and England finally withdrew their representatives from Naples, and the storm soon afterwards broke. The brilliant success of Garibaldi in 1860 filled Francis II with terror. He was now, like all evil men, ready to make the most lavish promises of liberal reform to escape the consequences of his misdeeds. However, his repentance came too late. The victorious Garibaldi issued a decree ultimately, stating that the Two Sicilies, which had been redeemed by Italian blood, and which had freely elected him their dictator, formed an integral part of one and indivisable Italy, under the constitutional King Victor Emmanuel and his descendants. Francis II was dethroned and expelled from his kingdom by the legitimate fruits of his own hateful policy and that of his predecessor. "Count Cavour was the brain as Garibaldi was the hand of that mighty movement which resulted in the unity of Italy," says an English writer, "but as Englishmen we may take pride in the fact that not the least among the precipitating causes of this movement was the fearless exposure by Mr. Gladstone of the cruelties and tyrannies of the Neapolitan Government."
