CARLO CARRERA.
The summer before last, after a shocking soaking in crossing the Apennines, I contracted one of those miserable fevers that nature seems to exact as a toll from unfortunate Trans-Alpines for a summer's residence in Italy. I had no faith in Italian doctors, and as there was no medical man from my own country in Florence, I was persuaded to call in Doctor Playfair a Scotch physician, long domiciled in Italy, and as I afterwards discovered, both a skillful practitioner and a charming companion. I was kept kicking my heels against the footboard in all some six weeks, and when I had become sufficiently convalescent to sit up, the doctor used to make me long and friendly visits. In these visits he kept me posted up with all the chit-chat of the town; and upon one occasion related to me, better than I can tell it, the following story, of the truth of which (in all seriousness), he was perfectly satisfied, having heard it from the mouth of one of the parties concerned.
"Do throw some bajocchi to those clamorous natives, my dear Republican, that I may proceed with my story in peace."
Well, then, to give you a little preliminary history—don't be alarmed—a very little. The liberal government established in Naples in the winter of 1820-21, on the basis of the Spanish Cortes of 1812, was destined to a speedy dissolution. The despotic powers of the Continent, at the instigation of Austria, refused to enter into diplomatic relations with a kingdom which had adopted the representative system, after an explicit and formal engagement to maintain the institutions of absolutism. An armed intervention was decided upon at the Congress of Laybach, with the full consent and approbation of Ferdinand I., who treacherously abandoned the cause of his subjects. It was agreed to send an Austrian army, backed by a Russian one, into the Neapolitan dominions, for the purpose of putting down the Carbornari and other insurgents who, to the number of one hundred and fifty thousand men, badly armed, badly clothed, and badly disciplined, had assembled under the command of that notorious adventurer, Guiliemo Pepe, for the protection of those feebly secured liberties which had resulted to their country from the Sicilian revolution of the previous summer. This foreign force was to be maintained entirely at the expense of Ferdinand, and to remain in his kingdom, if necessary, for three years. The feeble resistance offered by the patriots to the invading forces—their defeat at the very outset—and their subsequent flight and disbandment—constitute one of those disgraceful denouements so common to Italian attempts at political regeneration.
"By all the storks in Holland," exclaimed the Dutchman, "cut short your story—I see nothing in it particularly enlivening."
"Badinage à part," resumed the Frenchman, "I have done in a word."
After the disastrous engagement of March 7, at Rieti, and the restoration of the old government, the patriot forces were scattered over the country; and as has too often been the case in southern Europe upon the discomfiture of a revolutionary party, many bands of banditti were formed from the disorganized remnants of the defeated army. For a long time the whole of the kingdom, particularly the Calabrias, was infested by robber gangs, whose boldness only equaled their necessities. Most of these banditti were hunted down and transferred to the galleys. The Neapolitan police has at all times been active in the suppression of disorders known or suspected to have a political origin. Fear of a revolution has ever been a more powerful incentive to the government than respect for justice or love of order; and "Napoli la Fidelissima" has so far reserved the name, and inspired such confidence in the not particularly intellectual sovereign who now sits on the throne, that the last time that I was there, his Majesty was in the habit of parading his bewhiskered legions through the streets of his capital, completely equipped at all points—except that they were unarmed!
And now for the story.
Among the most notorious of the banditti chieftains was one Carlo Carrera. This person, who had been a subaltern officer, succeeded for a long time, with some thirty followers, in defying the attempts of the police to capture him. Driven from hold to hold, and from fastness to fastness, he had finally been pursued to the neighborhood of Naples. Here the gendarmes of the government were satisfied that he was so surrounded as soon to be compelled to surrender at discretion. This was late in the following winter.
About this time his Britannic Majesty's frigate "Tagus," commanded by Captain, now Vice-Admiral, Sir George Dundas, was cruising in the Mediterranean. In the month of February Sir George anchored in the bay of Naples, with the intention of remaining there some weeks. It happened that another officer in his Majesty's navy, Captain, now Vice-Admiral, Sir Edward Owen, was wintering at Naples for the benefit of his health, accompanied by his wife and her sister, Miss V——, a young lady of extraordinary beauty and accomplishments. Sir George and Sir Edward were old friends. They had been together in the same ship as captain and first-lieutenant on the African station, and their accidental meeting when equals in rank was as cordial as it was unexpected.