have failed to catch the Though some provinces

still fewer of those who, like the writer of these lines, then lived much in Italy, can enthusiasm which it inspired. sacrificed much, there was no province in which the Italian cause did not command the support of overwhelming majorities, and though two great wars and an overwhelming debt were the cost, the unity of Italy was at last achieved. The mingled associations of a glorious past and of a noble present, the genuine and disinterested enthusiasm that so visibly pervaded the great mass of the Italian people, the genius of Cavour, the romantic character and career of Garibaldi, and the inexpressible charm and loveliness of the land which was now rising into the dignity of nationhood, all contributed to make the Italian movement unlike any other of our time. It was the one moment of nineteenth-century history when politics assumed something of the character of poetry.

The glamour has now faded, and, looking back upon the past, we can more calmly judge the dubious elements that mingled with it. One of them was the manner in which the annexation of Naples was accomplished. The expedition of Garibaldi to Sicily consisted of so few men, and could have been so easily crushed if it had encountered any real popular resistance, that it scarcely forms an exception to the spontaneous character of the movement towards unity. But the absolutely unprovoked invasion of Naples by Piedmontese troops, which took place without any declaration of war when the Neapolitan forces had rallied at Gaeta, and when the Garibaldian forces were in danger of defeat, was a grave violation of international obligations and of the public law and order of Europe, and it can only be imperfectly palliated by the fact that similar interventions at the invitation of a sovereign.

and in the interests of despotism had not been uncom

mon.

Much the same thing may be said of the subsequent invasion of Rome, and in this case another and still graver consideration was involved. A great Catholic interest here confronted the purely national movement. In the opinion of the head of the Catholic Church, and in the opinion of the great body of devout Catholics throughout the world, the independence of the head of the Church could only be maintained if he remained the temporal sovereign of his diocese ; and there was therefore a cosmopolitan interest of the highest order at issue. The possession of Rome and the adjoining territory to the sea would have met the Catholic requirement for the independence of the Pope, and it was urged by men who had a warm general sympathy with the right of nations to choose their rulers, that in this case the less must yield to the greater, and that, in the interest of the whole 'Catholic population throughout the world, the small population of Rome and the adjoining territory must be content with a position which was in most respects privileged and honourable, and forego their claim to unite with Italy.

Gioberti had taught that the true solution of the Roman question was an Italian federation under the presidency of the Pope, and at the Peace of Villafranca Napoleon III. and the Emperor of Austria agreed to do their utmost to carry out this scheme. It was, however, from the first doomed to failure. One part of it was the restoration of the dispossessed princes, which could only be effected by force. Another was the introduction of Austria, as the ruler of Venetia, into the confederation, which excited the strongest Italian antipathy. The large measure of reform' which the

two Emperors agreed to use their influence to obtain. from the Pope proved wholly unacceptable to that potentate, while the honorary presidency of the confederation, to which he did not object, was equally unacceptable to Italy. Italian feeling flowed irresistibly towards unity, and the great prestige of Rome, which alone could command an indisputable ascendency among the Italian cities, marked her out as the natural capital. It is, however, not altogether impossible that some compromise with the Catholic interest might have been effected if there had been any real intelligence at the Vatican. Unfortunately, in this quarter incapacity and obstinacy reigned supreme. The Pope had, it is true, a cardinal-minister who possessed to an eminent degree the superficial talents that enable a statesman to write clever despatches and to conduct skilfully a diplomatic interview; but neither he nor his master showed the smallest real power of governing men, of measuring wisely the forces of their time, and of averting revolution by skilful, timely, and searching reform.

The part which was played by England in these transactions was very remarkable. Though she had not sacrificed a man or a guinea in the cause, she intervened actively and powerfully at every stage of its development; she had always an alternative policy to propose, and in nearly every case this policy ultimately prevailed. Lord John Russell conducted her foreign policy, and he was warmly supported in the Cabinet by Lord Palmerston. He dissented strongly from the leading articles of the Peace of Villafranca, and clearly pointed out the impossibility of carrying them into effect. He urged persistently that the Italian people should be left to form their own Governments freely, without the intervention of either France or Austria.

He was the only statesman who officially approved of the Piedmontese invasion of Naples, which he defended by a quotation from Vattel, and by the part played by William III. in the English revolution of 1688. He steadily advocated the withdrawal of French troops from Rome, and the treatment of the Roman question as a purely Italian one. He exasperated foreign statesmen not a little by his constant lectures on the right which belongs to the people of every independent State to regulate their own internal government,' and on the iniquity of every foreign interference with their clearly expressed will. With regard to the general question of interference,' he wrote, in the internal affairs of other countries, Her Majesty's Government holds that non-intervention is the principle on which the Governments of Europe should act, only to be departed from when the safety of a foreign State or its permanent interests require it.'1

At the same time, in the true spirit of an English Whig, he refused to lay any stress on the verdict of universal suffrage as expressed by a plebiscite, and regarded the regular vote of duly authorised representative bodies as the only decisive and legitimate expression of the voice of the people. Speaking of the annexation to the Italian State of Naples, Sicily, Umbria and the Marches, he wrote to Sir J. Hudson: The votes by universal suffrage which have taken place in those kingdoms and provinces appear to Her Majesty's Government to have little validity. These votes are nothing more than a formality following upon acts of popular insurrection, or successful invasion, or upon treaties, and do not in themselves imply any indepen

See the despatches on Italy in the second volume of Lord Russell's Speeches and Despatches.

dent exercise of the will of the nation in whose name they are given. Should, however, the deliberate act of the representatives of the several Italian States . constitute those States into one State in the form of a constitutional monarchy, a new question will arise.'1

It is probable that the emphasis with which Lord John Russell dwelt upon this distinction was largely due to the fact that the annexation of Savoy to France had been sanctioned and justified by a popular vote. The British Government treated this vote and the pretended popular wish with complete disdain, as a mere device of the two Governments concerned, for the purpose of veiling the character of a secret and dangerous intrigue; and Lord John Russell denounced the whole. transaction in language which might easily have led to war.2

This policy undoubtedly represented the predominant public opinion of Great Britain, and it was eminently successful. In the very critical state of Italian affairs, and amid the strongly expressed disapprobation of the great Continental Powers, the steady countenance and moral support of England gave both force and respectability to the Italian cause, and broke the isolation to which it would have otherwise been condemned. The obligation was fully felt and gratefully acknowledged ; and there is a striking contrast between the extreme popularity of England and the extreme unpopularity of France in Italy within a few months, it may be almost said within a few weeks, after Solferino. The promise that Italy should be freed from the Alps to the Adriatic,' and uncontrolled by any foreign Power, was falsified by the Peace of Villafranca, which left Austria

Lord J. Russell to Sir J. Hudson, Jan. 21, 1861.