all these causes combined, not one ever thought of assigning, as a motive for his endurance of the evils he complained of, any thing like being resigned to suffering for religion's sake, or delighting to remain on ground hallowed to him as the scene of his Saviour's ministry. These worthies expressed great satisfaction in the prospect of the re-establishment of the holy Inquisition, spoke of Ferdinand in such terms of eulogium as bigotry and cunning together prompted, and praised him, above every thing else, for always giving twice the money that was asked of him for any pious purpose. We were glad to find that our present King, on the contrary, was in disgrace, on account of having, when he was Prince Regent, sent only fifteen hundred pounds to the guardians of the Holy Sepulchre as a present, the King of Spain having just before sent six thousand pounds sterling for the same purpose. Parsimony, when we consider the knaves and hypocrites who share the spoil, could not be better practised than in this instance.--Ibid.

ART. 21.-A Narrative of the Political and Military Events which took place at Naples in 1820 and 1821. Addressed to the King of the Two Sicilies, by General WILLIAM PEPE. London.

We were sanguine, to the last, in the success of the Neapolitan struggle; and after its sudden and extraordinary failure, we always refused to join in the wholesale charge of baseness and cowardice against the people of Naples. We did not then, nor do we now believe, that there is any nation in Europe, who, after acquiring freedom by a revolution, will surrender that blessing to a foreign and detested despotism, without a fierce and prolonged defence. We believed further, that the Neapolitans were a brave and spirited people, who would fight for their homes and liberty even better than some other European nations. We saw also in the manner of the Revolution, how completely a sense of the necessity of Reform had pervaded every class of the community, before the blow was struck. Added to which, it was quite clear, that treachery had been busily at work on the part of the Holy Alliance and the displaced corruptionists of the old Court. General Pepe has confirmed all these impressions, has completely developed the treachery to a dreadful extent, and has defended the character and vindicated the noble exertions of his unfortunate countrymen; for which, and for the fine feeling and manly courage displayed in his own conduct, he has our gratitude, esteem, and admiration.

The unfortunate Murat had many qualities that might gain the affections of the nation; but his government was after all that of a soldier, and he was a foreigner, placed on the throne by foreign arms;-an offence which no people ought ever to forget or forgive. The sect of the Carbonari, a sort of political freemasons, first came into notice under his government, and would certainly have ejected him, had they not been anticipated by the Austrians. It is a circumstance not to be overlooked, that in 1813 the Carbonari were protected and encouraged by Ferdinand, who was then employing the treacherous policy of his fellow Legitimates, and stirring up the Neapolitans against Murat by the most earnest and explicit promises of a Liberal Constitution ;-promises which received a final and solemn confirmation when his Sicilian Majesty left Palermo to reascend his Italian throne. We all know the result: he broke his word in the most impudent and profligate manner. He set up the old despotism in its worst form, and actually concluded, two months only after his Palermitan Proclamation, a secret treaty with the Emperor of Austria, binding himself to permit no changes which did not assimilate with the Austrian mode of governing Lombardy!

General Pepe was nominated to the command of the provinces of Avellino and Foggia; and he proceeded to organize a force of national guards, by the help of which, and the moral spirit constantly inculcated in the secret societies, (which by this time included the most respectable and distinguished persons in the state,) the formidable public robbers, who had long defied the feeble exertions of the court, were entirely rooted out. General Pepe had a further view in the formation of the national guard-their extreme utility in the inevitable event of a Revolution; and in this his expectations were fully borne out by the result. The General however did every thing in his power to prevent a premature explosion, by which blood might have been shed and passions excited, disreputable to the Reformers; an anxiety which reflects the greatest honour on this brave and excellent man, who had suffered severely in his own person from tyranny, and yet had been neither inspired by revenge, nor spoiled by a military education.* So great indeed

* General Pepe was condemned in his youth for political offences to perpetual imprisonment in the dungeon of the island of Marettimo, (an old cistern hollowed out of a rock and used for state prisoners,) where he actually suffered three years confinement, "the details of which," he says with a modest and high-minded brevity, "would make humanity blush." After the late restoration he was not

was his caution, that the first movement took place some hours before he had intended it. "On the morning of the 2d of July (1820) a squadron of the Regiment of Bourbon, which had come to Naples for three or four days, sallied forth towards my headquarters at Avellino, proclaiming the Constitutional Monarchy. But was it possible for one hundred and twenty cavalry to overturn the system of absolute power which had lasted for ages? No, Sire !"

The following defence of the Carbonari is the most pithy and complete we ever saw.

The society of Carbonari has been depicted in frightful colours, but how could it be otherwise by the mercenary slaves of absolute power! Previous to its existence in the kingdom of Naples, every change and popular movement was sure to be followed by pillage and crimes. After its introduction among us, the people became prudent and moral. If any wretch belonging to this society took part in the assassination of Giampetro, that would only prove that in societies actuated by the strictest morality, wicked men may contrive to introduce themselves. The society of Freemasons, of which the Carbonari is only a branch, has frequently been under the disagreeable necessity of expelling from its body men whose infamous conduct has proved them unworthy to belong to it....It should be recollected that it was introduced by an absolute government, who propagated it in our kingdom as long as the king, who was then in Sicily, had occasion for it. Far from excommunicating the Carbonari, the church at that time caused it to be preached by the monks and priests, that the exhibiting the signs of a Carbonaro was sufficient to make St. Peter open the gates of Paradise.'

The perfect good order and bloodless quiet with which the Revolution was brought about-the consciousness evinced by Ferdinand and his Court of the necessity of an immediate submission to the popular demands-the universal refusal of the regular troops to fight against the Reformers in arms—and the general hearty joy which followed the constitutional triumph; -all these could not be denied; but then we were told it was a only condemned to death, but the Court of Naples caused hired agents to follow him to Spain, where they propagated the vilest slanders against him: among others that infamous story, so eagerly copied by English papers, of his having car. ried off the army chest. "A calumny so atrocious would have excited the laughter and contempt of my fellow citizens; but the case may be widely different in countries at a distance. Your Majesty knows, or ought to know, that the chest in question was delivered untouched to the Paymaster-general Gazzera, and that I left in it sums which were due to me, as indemnities attached to my command, which I never dreamt of retaining, having then far different considerations at heart."

military insurrection; and the paternity of the Holy Allies was anxious to protect Europe from an example of insubordination among armies! If any thing had been wanting to prove how perfectly free from all taint of crime or violence the Revolution of Naples was, it would have been supplied by the adoption of so wretched a piece of hypocrisy on the part of the Conspiracy of Despots. But how much more disgusting was it, that the English Tory journals, to the lasting disgrace of the press and government, took up and repeated this vile cant, this impudent calumny! Had they forgotten that the Brunswick Family sits on the British throne by virtue of a Revolution effected by a foreign force, in conjunction with the army on Hounslow Heath, and the Protestant part of the country? And does it become the adherents of that Family, with the phrase of "Glorious Revolution" always in their mouths, to be abusing the still more glorious Revolution of Naples for what, if it were a crime in Italy in 1820, must have ruined the character of England in 1688, and made the House of Hanover a succession of usurpers?

The history of what occurred between the Revolution and the Austrian invasion is indeed a melancholy one. The Executive was divided and inert: and the Regent, who seems to have been a lamentably weak person, was reduced to a stupid inactivity by the idea of fighting against invaders into whose arms the slippery old dotard his father had thrown himself. The enthusiasm of the people was so great and universal as warranted the most confident anticipations of triumph. The provinces were maintained in perfect order without military aid, (a thing unknown under the old despotism.) A guard of safety was organized at Naples -“as fine a body of men as were ever seen in any other capital of Europe”-clothed and maintained in active service entirely at their own expense. The fatal error was committed of letting the King go to Laybach.

The only fighting that took place was in the Abruzzi, where General Pepe commanded; and so far from wondering why there was so little resistance, it is surprising how fifty men were kept together on the advance of the Austrians. The General had a frontier of 150 miles to defend against the heavy columns of the enemy, with a few battalions of regulars and some halfclothed and half-fed militia. He was without money or stores. His soldiers were obliged to bivouac in the snow, in which he himself had nearly perished. The Austrian General Frimont was employing spies and circulating proclamations in his own

and the old King's name, to induce the militia to disband, and to corrupt the officers by bribery and promises; both which results, assisted by the desperate state of affairs, were produced in several cases. Under all these disheartening circumstances the first rencontre took place at Rieti; and it is a fact which commands the greatest admiration, "that the Neapolitans supported for seven hours a very brisk fire, and that the enemy's cavalry (on which the Austrians particularly pride themselves) failed in all the charges which it attempted to make on them." The retreat which of course followed was attended with a result that all military men were prepared for-namely, the impossibility of keeping together the militia and raw levies. Yet the Regent and the Government were so terrified by this first misfortune, or so little devoted to the cause, that they abandoned the country to its fate. This conduct was quite as shameful as their former neglect.

These facts surely afford no ground for imputing to the Neapolitans the baseness of cowardice at such a moment. It has been the fate of every nation struggling for liberty, under the like circumstances, against the regular armies of tyranny, to meet with similar reverses at first. Yet a prejudice has cer tainly spread abroad against the unfortunate people of Naples on this score, which required such a Narrative as the one before us to dispel; and certainly most complete and unanswerable are the arguments of its author. "In 1811," he observes, "the soldiers of the Prussian army, now so distinguished, blushed to call themselves Prussians. If we look farther back, we shall find that the same thing happened to the Russians, under Peter the Great; and in more recent times, the Americans under Bolivar have met in the beginning with more serious reverses than have befallen the Neapolitan militia at Rieti." Above all, think of the early repulses of the French, even in the full and impetuous tide of their first violent revolutionary impulses.

It is an honest and manly Narrative, which a love of truth and a desire to rescue his countrymen from unmerited obloquy have drawn from General Pepe. He has fully succeeded in his purpose, and has rendered an important service to the interests of humanity,-meriting not only the gratitude of his compatriots, but that of the whole European public. Bold, resolute, uniting an enthusiasm almost romantic with the steadiest judgment, he has laboured for his country's good under all circumstances of suffering, of threats, of temptations. As the wise and moderate