the mob were encouraged, and, in the course of a few days, attacked the police and other public offices, in order to possess themselves of the weapons there deposited. On the same day, the manifesto of the Syracusans arrived, was immediately reprinted by the rebel Catanese and sent off to Messina with a band to excite a mob there also. The town, however, was then under the protection of a civic guard; and all attempts to excite disturbances were vain. On the same evening, the Catanese arrested the Intendente, Procuratore Generale, and the commander of the gendarmerie, as persons suspected of distributing poi. son, and confined them under guard in the house of one of their nobility. They then formed a Council of Secu. rity, and raised the yellow flag in token of Sicilian Independence. The Intendente and Procuratore were forced to swear allegiance to the new government, and were then set at liberty-although their freedom was all but nominal, as they were kept under the strictest surveillance. The garrison, being small and inefficient, was soon dis. armed. An original manifesto was published, declarative of the good deeds and purposes of the rebels. The bells of the churches were taken from their towers to be moulded into cannon. The pictures of the royal family were collected from the various public edifices and demolished, the statue of Francesco torn from its pedestal, destroyed by order of the government, and the revolutionary stan. dard displayed in its place.

The slight opposition with which these movements in Sicily were met by the representatives of the government, indicates the frail tenure by which Naples holds dominion

over the island. And when at length measures were adopted to quell the disturbances, new scenes of horror succeeded. The Marquis Del Carretto was commissioned by the King to make the circuit of the island and inflict summary justice upon all implicated in the recent transactions. This officer appears to have been singularly fitted for his sanguiary vocation. Had the victims to martial law whom he caused to be sacrificed, been confined to the conspicuous among the mob, or even to such as had openly identified themselves with the violent deeds of the populace, we might consider him in some measure justified by the circumstances and occasion, in making such an example as would prevent the farther effusion of human blood.-But many an act of the most aggravated tyranny and cruel proscription perpetrated by Del Carretto, under the pretence of restoring public order, will long be remembered with indignation.

There is a class of educated Sicilians, and chivalrous youth, who have cherished the hope of effecting the independence of their country, by means and at a period altogether different from those, into which the pestilence precipitated the fiery hearts of the less informed and the deluded. In the midst of the various and contending revolutionary elements then convulsing Sicily, there were not à few noble, ardent, and truly patriotic spirits who saw in the course of events consequent upon the cholera, a still longer postponement of their dearest hopes-a still wider chasm yawning between anticipated and realized freedom. The unfitness of the mass for the boon of self-govern. ment was made appallingly obvious. The gradual, heal

thy spread of liberal sentiment was suddenly checked. The government, long jealous and anxious for an occasion to inspire the people with fear, seized upon this moment to remove the most influential advocates of free principles from the pathway of liberty. If the revolution. ists availed themselves of the cholera to excite the multitude against the government, the latter took no small advantages of the excesses of the people to revenge themselves upon the daring, intelligent and quiet promulgators of those truths which lie at the foundation of all successful innovation. Many a gifted young man was sentenced to die in two hours, upon the bare evidence of having ut. tered or written some expression indicating his hostility to foreign dominion; and not a small portion of the flower of the Sicilian youth were chased by a Neapolitan vessel of war beyond Elba-rending the air, as they flew before the breeze, with the glad strains of the Marsellaise, One of the King's manifestos threatened with death all who should elieve in poisoning as the cause of the pestilence; and his indefatigable deputy, who had volunteered to avenge his cause upon the wretched Sicilians, passed rapidly from city to city, holding levees for the adherents of the crown, giving balls to the loyal ladies, confiscating the estates of the refugees, and shooting, after the merest mockery of a trial, all recognized ring-leaders of rebellion and every one who could, under any pretence, be suspected of being a liberal.

One poor youth escaped death only by flight who had been seen to applaud some patriotic sentiment rather vehemently in the theatre; and the name of one of the best

educated and finest young men of the island was placed on the bloody list merely on the dying testimony of one of the victims, wrung from him by the hope of a reprieve. After the lapse of a few weeks, public order was re-established. The pestilence ceased. Del Carretto returned to Naples. But it will be long before the melancholy traces of these calamities will pass away from the island, or the solitary places be filled. The King has since visited his subjects, and a reconciliation has been effected. Neither have their sufferings been wholly without political benefit to the Sicilians. Many privileges have been acceded to the different communities. New commercial facilities have been afforded, onerous regulations abolished, and the quarantine system revised. Nor can the conduct of a part of the inhabitants have failed so as to impress the government as shall henceforth command for them more respect, and cause their just rights to be more readily recognized.* One scene of which I was a witness, was alone calculated to produce no transient impression.

As the news of the afflicting events which were desolating the other parts of Sicily, reached Messina, it threw the whole city into mourning. The arrival of the Palermo post was expected with an eager and painful interest visibly depicted upon the face of almost every passer; and at all hours of the day, the Marina was studded with groups whose anxious countenances indicated the one absorbing subject they were discussing. But on one occasion, the spectacle presented from the balconies, was by no

* Later accounts however indicate but too plainly a renewal of· the most despotic and baneful policy.

means so quiet. A crowd had collected around the Health Office, which rises directly from the water's edge, and were clamoring to the deputies sitting within, to send instantly away a brig of war which had that moment entered the port from Naples, where the cholera was then raging, having been sent by the King, with clothing for the troops, then quartered at Messina. The circle immediately around the building consisted of the lower orders of the Messinese-porters, boatmen and mechanicstheir disordered vestments, shaggy beards and fierce expressions, giving them not a little of a genuine revolu tionary aspect. Behind these foremost actors in the scene, stood a multitude of the better class, regarding the movements of the rabble with simple curiosity or secret approbation. The members of the Board of Health thus found themselves in an awkward predicament. On the one hand, they feared to disobey the royal order to receive the clothing, and on the other they were threatened with the vengeance of an exasperated populace. Their reply, however, was indecisive; and so deep and vindictive a murmur followed its annunciation, that the frightened deputies deemed it best to effect their escape. With this view, they sprang from the back door and crowded into the boats which were drawn up on the beach, urging their owners to push off, and promising their adversaries in the rear that the obnoxious vessel should be forthwith sent away. It was ludicrous to see with what a compromise of dignity their escape was effected. Many of these worthies rushed into the water above their middle, in order Their assurance of immediately com

to gain the boats.