S

Surface, &c. Along the Moray Frith, and for a few miles inward, the surface is generally low, and much of the soil productive, being partly loam, and partly clay, both of them fertile. Farther south the country rises into hills, containing but a small proportion of arable land, and this chiefly a sandy loam or gravel. The only streams of any note are the Nairn and the Findhorn, both of which it receives from Inverness-shire. They have a nearly parallel course from south-west to north-east. The former flows into the Moray Frith, at the town of the same name, but the

latter, before entering the Frith, passes into the county of Moray. The Nairn is, therefore, the only river which can be said to belong to this county, and it is inconsiderable; but its banks are in many places well wooded, and it has a small salmon-fishery. Marl is found in several places, particularly on the estate of Lord Cawdor, in the vale of Litie, where it is of an excellent quality; and in the same quarter, and at Kilravock, there are some quarries of sandstone.

The territory of Nairnshire, exclusive of the lands belonging to the burgh of Nairn, is divided into fifteen estates, of which nine are under the valuation of L.500 Scots, other three under L.2000, and the remaining three above L.2000; and a few years ago the number of freeholders entitled to vote in the election of a member for the county was 22. The valued rent is L.15,162, 10s. 11d. Scots, of which about one-sixth is entailed; and the real rent, in 1811, was, for the lands, L.11,725, 14s. Sterling, and for the houses L.216. The principal seats are Cawdor Castle,—Lord Cawdor; Kilravock Castle,—Rose; Boath,—Dunbar; and Kinsterie,—Gordon.

This county is further subdivided into farms, for Farms. the most part small, and, with few exceptions, open, and ill cultivated, producing oats, bear or bigg, and potatoes, but very little wheat. Turnips and clovers do not yet enter into the usual course of crops. Its live stock presents nothing worthy of particular notice. Though the natural circumstances of the dis-

Nairnshire trict do not seem to be very different from those of the contiguous county of Moray, except that it has no harbours, yet its rural economy is greatly behind that of the latter county.

Towns. Nairn, the county town, and a royal burgh, is a place of considerable antiquity, and pleasantly situated; but having no harbour, it is without trade or manufactures, and contains only about 2000 inhabitants. According to a survey made by Mr Telford, a commodious harbour may be formed for about £. 3000. The villages are Aultdearn and Calder.

Representa- tion, &c. This county sends a member to Parliament alternately with the shire of Cromarty; and the town of Nairn joins with Inverness, Forres, and Fortrose, in the election of a member for the burghs. The counties of Moray and Nairn are under the jurisdiction of the same sheriff, who has a substitute for the latter county in the town of Nairn.

Nairnshire formed a part of the ancient province of Moray. On the estate of Lord Cawdor, at a place called the Hoar Moor, Macbeth, according to Shakespeare, met the witches when upon his way from the Western Isles to Forres; and a bedstead, said to be that on which Duncan was assassinated by the usurper, is still preserved in the Castle of Cawdor. Near the village of Aultdearn, Montrose obtained a great victory over the Covenanters in 1645. The county contains the ruins of several castles, and other remains of an early age. The Castles of Calder or Cawdor, and Kilravock, both of great antiquity, are still the seats of their proprietors.

The population of this small county is shown in the following abstract.—See The Beauties of Scotland, Vol. IV.; Leslie's General View of the Agriculture of Nairn and Moray; The General Report of Scotland; and Playfair's Description of Scotland, Vol. II. (A.)

NAPLES.—The history of Naples, down to the period when Bonaparte bestowed its sceptre on Murat, is given in the Encyclopædia; where also will be found a general description of the country. The succeeding historical events of any importance will be found under the articles AUSTRIA and FRANCE, in this Supplement; and there is some notice of its statistics, under the general article on ITALY. The present article is limited to the late Revolution; of which, and of its issue, the Editor has received the following account from the pen of an intelligent Neapolitan.

The last revolution of Naples, although it ended unexpectedly, without advantage or honour to the nation, is very remarkable, if we consider the political death (if we may so speak) to which Italy had been doomed during three centuries, not only as

a power, but as a people; and when we recollect that this was the first political movement which, for seventy years, merited the name of a national one in Italy. It was attempted and brought about, not foolishly to benefit foreigners, and with foreign troops, according to the old custom of the Italians, but for Italian interests, and with Italian forces.

On the fall of the French empire, Murat was expelled by the Austrian arms from the throne of Naples, and Ferdinand restored (May 1815). The condition of the new government, though at first sight promising, was beset with great difficulties. The Bourbon ministers found, on their return from Sicily, that an immense power had been usurped by the Crown, during the French government, the period of which was now called the Decenio. All aristocratical hierarchy, all municipal franchises,

were destroyed. From the highest affairs of state, down to the meanest municipal concern, the prince ruled every thing by a host of public functionaries. But all this authority was supported solely by a standing army organized by the French, which the king did not trust; and by a revenue of 16,000,000 of ducats, which, having been only derived from the rapacity of the French financier, had, at the end of ten years, become intolerable. They found, besides, the dispositions of the people very much changed. The Neapolitans, who seldom liked their governments, had grown more than ever indifferent to the person of their prince, reluctant to submit to absolute power, and well aware of the only effectual remedy to restrain its abuse. But a cause, more powerful than all these, assisted in imbuing their minds with the principles of liberty. A political association, known by the name of Carbonarism, had sprung up, and experienced various fortunes under the French. At first it was despised, because its real object was yet misunderstood; it was afterwards fiercely persecuted by Murat, and finally caressed in vain by his ministers, who sought in it a support to his tottering throne. But such a forced retraction of his former steps availed Murat nothing in adversity. The nation was alienated from him, and hoped to gain by a change of princes. King Ferdinand had, in a proclamation from Palermo, promised a constitution, by which the people should be the sovereign, and the prince a mere depository of the laws. Murat, vanquished and despairing, attempted to throw out a lure to the Neapolitans, by causing a constitution to be proclaimed a few days before the Austrians occupied that capital. Chevalier Medici had now succeeded to Count Zurlo, and alone governed the state. This minister felt no blind party prejudices against reforms that had arisen out of the revolution. His objection was solely that of ministerial interest. Esteeming the Neapolitans to be unsteady in their wishes, he would not shock their political opinions, but rather strove to delude and rule, without satisfying them. Every thought of the new minister was bent upon finance; for the new government had assumed the discharge of enormous responsibilities. The negotiators for King Ferdinand, at the Congress of Vienna, were forced almost to redeem his crown from Austria, at a time when so much noise was made by the allies about the doctrine of legitimacy and restoration. They bargained to pay 6,000,000 of ducats to the imperial treasury; 1,150,000 ducats a year for the support of the Austrian troops in the kingdom; and 1,200,000 ducats to Beauharnois, ex-viceroy of Italy, for indemnities due to him by Austria. The disgraces and burdens imposed upon the nation did not stop here. Naples became tributary even to Rome and to the piratical states of Africa. Rome would not consent to satisfy the conscience of the king without a Cohéordat, by which an annual revenue of 12,000 ducats in land was assigned to the Roman treasury: thirty-six convents were re-established and richly provided for by the state. The ordinary administration was no less tainted with prodigality. Medici, following the example of France,

endeavoured to prop the immense authority of the crown with the order of public functionaries left by the French, who were so numerous, and so closely bound together, by their opinions and interests, that they resembled a new aristocracy. Hence the public offices, which already pressed so heavily upon the nation, far from being reduced, were daily augmented. From all such causes resulted a government that was passive, but rapacious. The prime minister seemed to govern only to raise taxes. The French imposts, chiefly the land-tax, which had been always burdensome to the nation, now caused general complaints, on account of the extreme depreciation of corn and oil, attendant upon the peace of Europe. These chief products of a country entirely agricultural, now scarcely brought a third of the price which they had held a few years before. Yet for a small profit of the treasury, foreign merchants were allowed to import their corn into the kingdom, where it sold at a very low price, and almost entirely interrupted the sale of home wheat. The distress augmented in a short time to such a pitch, that in Apulia, the old harvest was often thrown into the sea to make room for the new one in the granaries. The land proprietors, rich and poor, remonstrated with the government, and offered to discharge the imposts with the very products of the soil; and these soon becoming unequal to taxes and culture, the lands began to be abandoned—a lamentable, but certain mark of the rapacity of the government and of an approaching revolution. The country was overpread with internal custom-houses from one borough to another, for external trade yielded little; contraband commerce increased, and the amount of the loss was surreptitiously overcharged upon the lands. The most trifling transactions were committed to stamped paper, and registered. In short, every expedient, however ruinous, was esteemed good, provided it could afford immediate money. By such means the public revenues were in three years stretched to more than 20,000,000 of ducats; but, for this augmentation, the subject was wrung, moderately speaking, of half his real income, at a time when the national industry was sinking into a state of unprecedented wretchedness. This fiscal delirium could not have lasted long. The farmers were impoverished, the middle classes were reduced to despair; discontent rapidly spread into the provinces, and the general wish for a reform was little dissembled. Carbonarism, checked only for a time by the denunciations against all secret societies, which followed the restoration, now rose in double strength. But an event, which had once threatened its extermination, contributed even more to its revival. The minister of police, the Prince of Canosa, detesting the very name of French innovation, designed to force back the nation to the state in which it had been ten years before. He considered the Carbonari as Murattites, or partisans of the French, whilst they are only votaries of liberty and enemies to despotism, by whomsoever exercised. The seeds of another sect adverse to Carbonarism had been sown since the time of the French by a bishop, who was an enemy to their government. This was composed of a

species of loyalists, the dregs of the people, chiefly rioters, who had participated in the counter-revolutionary massacres of 1799. They assumed the name of Calderaj. The minister of police exerted all his influence to rally them with mysterious rites and signs, and to arm as many of them as he could. In a little time their numbers exceeded 60,000, and they were generally believed to be ready to fall upon the Carbonari or Murattites on the night of Holy Thursday 1816, and, renewing the example of the Sicilian vespers, to massacre them all over the country. The minister, thus become master of the state, could have reformed it according to his own will. But the horrible plot was soon discovered; and Medici, who professed quite different politics, and was then all powerful, caused the minister of police to be banished to Lucca. Thus Medici saved his country from a dreadful civil war; the new sectaries were easily disarmed, and soon sunk into oblivion. But the Carbonari, who were aware of their danger, and had united more closely than ever, would no more separate, after having once rallied for their common defence. Nay, three years were sufficient to draw into their association all the active part of the people, and to convert the rest to their political religion. Whether by the lapse of time, or by the recent example of the free constitution of Sicily having been overturned at one blow, it had become evident that the promise from Palermo was mere state-craft to hasten the fall of Murat. The patriots, judging themselves strong enough in the provinces of Lecce and Bari, reminded the king of his pledge, with bold and reiterated remonstrances; and demanded a constitution, together with the repeal of the land-tax, within a certain term. These petitions being disdained, the town of Lecce rose in a commotion (1817), and nothing was wanting to a revolution but support from the other provinces. But the cause of Carbonarism was yet neither so strong nor so unanimous as it became soon afterwards. A new sect had sprung from it, which seemed to incline more to democracy, and was much spread among the lower classes of people in the provinces of Lecce and Bari. This sect, by introducing licentiousness and violence in popular opinions, divided and enfeebled the party, and soon became odious to the best intentioned of the patriots. On the first news of General Church having marched with some troops against Lecce, a few hundreds of the new sectaries took to arms, and overran the country in bands. The Government commander easily diverted or quelled this insurrection. By dexterously availing himself of the discord of the patriots, and showing the moderate they had nothing to fear from him, he succeeded in amusing a great many, and subduing the rest. All the armed were proscribed, many fell in the field, and several were put to death, or confined in the Sicilian islands. But discontent had crept even into the army. Most of the military having been trained by the French, when there were no bounds to fortune and honour in their profession, were impatient of the restored government, which used soldiers only to keep down the people. Besides, the mal-administration of the war minister (a German officer), the penury of the finances, the jealousy of the Austrians, and

the partiality of the king towards the military who returned with him from Sicily, had greatly injured the army, and divided it into two adverse parties. This hostile disposition was soon turned to the national advantage by some patriotic chiefs, the principal among whom was William Pépé. This general had been disposing affairs for a revolution, during two years that he held the military command in the provinces of Foggia and Avellino. He had formed there no less than 10,000 militia, chiefly composed of small land-proprietary, armed and clothed at their own expence, and commanded by the country gentlemen, who were exasperated against the rapacity of the administration. Such a militia was well qualified for accomplishing a revolution; yet they were tolerated by the prime minister, on account of the great services, without any expence, he drew from them; for they had, in a short time, scoured the country of the banditti, who are ever swarming in that kingdom. Thus to save money, arms were entrusted to that very class which was most interested in national reform. So capital an error of despotic policy may well characterize the administration of Medici as entirely financial. Every thing, therefore, hastened to a revolution, when the news arrived of the movement at Cadiz. This example banished from the multitude all remaining doubts as to success. It taught the chiefs how to act; and in a natural spirit of imitation, they chose the constitution of the Cortes for their model. This constitution, moreover, seemed to be the only monarchical one fixed at one effort by the representatives of a great nation, and still unimpaired by the abuses of power and time. The patriots now began earnestly to think upon a general movement. William Pépé, considered as the chief of the enterprise, communicated his plan to some superior officers of his division, and a few citizens. They agreed that the general should, under pretence of a muster, assemble, on the 23th of June (1820), his 10,000 militia at Avellino, where he was to be immediately reinforced by five regiments of horse quartered at Foggia, Nola, Nocera, Aversa, and Naples, and by all the armed patriots of the two Principati and Capitanata: a camp was then to be formed, and a petition sent to the king, demanding the constitution. The signal being thus given, no doubts were entertained of a general and ready support from all the provinces. But owing to the want of resolution of one colonel, this plan failed. The general, judging it convenient to delay his design for a short time, went to Naples, where he had been repeatedly called by the government. But, in these perplexities, Morelli, a young lieutenant, unexpectedly departed from Nola, on the night of the 1st of July, with 130 horse, and, marching to Avellino, threw down the gauntlet. The revolution had been long since ripe in the minds of the Neapolitans, and the departure of Morelli was only the signal for its accomplishment. At the first intelligence of his march, Foggia, Avellino, and Salerno, took up arms, and proclaimed the Spanish constitution. An intrenched camp was formed by the constitutionalists in the strong passes of Monteforte, and thither the militia, the patriots, and most of the

Naples. standing army, flocked from all directions. General P��pe having defeated the precautions of the cabinet, by which he was still obstructed in the capital, led some more troops to the camp, and took the command of the whole. The government, awakened from its slumber, had already attempted force. Generals Carrascosa and Ambrosio were sent with some troops against the constitutional camp, whilst Generals Campano and Nunziano were to attack it rearwards from Solofra. But all proved vain. Campano was bravely repelled by the constitutionalists, led by Colonel Deconcilij. Carrascosa, perceiving the majority of his troops more inclined to join their comrades than to fight against them, would not hazard a battle. The government, now despairing of succeeding by force, recalled him, and prepared itself to satisfy the nation. The court, indeed, made a last effort to divert the storm by a royal promise of a constitution to be settled in eight days. But this state-expedient could not deceive men to whom no choice was left but between the scaffold and success:—The proposal was refused. The capital was in commotion. The King, yielding to the entreaties of his oldest friends, consented at last to the constitution of the Cortes. Secret protestations, however, are said to have been addressed from that very moment to the five great powers of Europe, ascribing that concession to mere force, and invalidating it in all its consequences.

Occurrences between the Establishment of the New Constitution and the Austrian Invasion.

The whole of this revolution was brought about in six days, with a facility and mildness that proved the public mind to be ripe for free institutions. But the royal personages were not so easily consoled for their loss of power. The king showed this, by resigning the government to his son Prince Francis, who assumed the title of Vicar of the Kingdom. The constitutional camp, 15,000 strong, was raised at Monteforte, and marched to the capital. Many errors were committed in that camp. An egregious one had been to intrust power to persons whose lives and fortunes were not staked on the revolution. Fortune no sooner seemed leaning to the side of the constitutionalists, than the disappointed ambitious spirits of the decennio awoke, and laid hold of the first places of the state. Count Zurla, who had persecuted the patriots, and who had seconded various changes of power and principles, reappeared at the helm of the state. His colleagues had been, like him, the courtiers of Murat, and little cared for the new liberty of their country, if it was to be preserved at the cost of their personal danger and sacrifices. Almost all the offices, civil and military, were left in the possession of a set of men accustomed to change sides from the vanquished to the vanquisher. A revolution which had been thus defective in decision at home, was farther menaced from abroad. Austria soon evinced a profound resentment at the revolution of Naples, both by diplomatic protestations, and by rejecting the new Neapolitan envoys as the representatives of rebels. From the beginning these true patriots had no other chance of success than to have invited all Italians to arms, while the Austrians were still weak in Lombardy. But the new government had not courage for this, and the

opportunity for raising Upper Italy by surprise had nearly vanished, when the unfortunate revolution of Sicily broke out.

Naples. Sicily is the only country in Italy where the feudal aristocracy is still strong. This island had escaped French subjection to fall under that of the English, who here combated Bonaparte with the principles of liberty. Nevertheless the Sicilian constitution, given in 1812, left the power of the House of Commons in the hands of the nobility. But even the few benefits which could have accrued from English ascendancy were lost by the constitution being abolished as soon as it could be dispensed with. Medici attempted, in 1819, to introduce the French administration into Sicily, but the nobles generally resisted such innovations, and the people, through inveteracy against the rule of the Neapolitans, supported their resistance. After the revolution on this side the Pharam, the Spanish constitution had scarcely been proclaimed at Palermo, when the chief Sicilian nobility instigated the people to proclaim Sicily independent of Naples. The Neapolitan garrison of Palermo being furiously attacked by the mob, and overwhelmed with stones, boiling oil, and other missiles thrown from the houses, surrendered at discretion after a dreadful contest. But the Sicilian nobility, after they had allured the people by the promise of independence from Naples, wherewith they covered their design of re-establishing the aristocratic constitution, found that it was easier to raise than to guide a sedition. For the people proclaimed independence, and the constitution of the Cortes cut off the heads of Princes Aci and Catolica; and even whilst following their aristocratic leaders, menaced them with the axe. At last General Florestan P��pe was sent into Sicily with a squadron and 6000 troops. He landed at Messina, defeated the revolted Palermitans at Termini, and obliged Palermo to capitulate, delivering the city from a state of the most frightful anarchy. But that capitulation, which yielded to the independents the separation from Naples, which they had been unable to get by force, was soon annulled by the Neapolitan Parliament. The general was recalled, new troops were sent out, and Palermo was held neither in friendship nor enmity. The majority of the Sicilians, however, seemed to decide the question against independence by sending deputies to represent them at Naples.

The Parliament had now assembled at Naples, and received, on the 1st of October, the constitutional oath of the king. The liberty of Naples was to depend upon this assembly. The Spanish constitution had been granted, excepting the necessary alterations to be settled by the representatives in its adaptation to the Two Sicilies. Yet, at the bottom of this proviso from the court lay a design to increase, as much as possible, the constitutional power of the Crown by a servile Parliament. The ministry had endeavoured to influence the elections; but the name of Zurla was so unpopular, that the slightest suspicion of interference had been sufficient to exclude a candidate, whatever might be his experience in public affairs. The people, suspecting the nobility of a wish to introduce an hereditary chamber in

the constitution, had hooted them off the hustings. Owing to this national disposition, the Parliament had been mostly composed of men who had never exercised any public office. The majority of them were of an upright rather than firm mind; some were versed in literature, none in state-craft; many ignorant of every thing, trusting more to the justice of the public cause, and to the effects of mildness towards the Crown, than to their own intrepidity and credit with the people. The Parliament applied itself to the diminution of the public burdens, though the military expences had nearly exhausted the treasury; chose a new council of state; made good municipal laws; and reorganized the army. At first it was well seconded by the nation. The dismissed veterans flocked spontaneously back to their banners on the first call of the government, and soon exceeded the number demanded. The Calabrese militia gallantly supported the army in Sicily. Several provinces paid in advance the very land-tax which they felt so heavy. But the ministry made all this useless to the state. Every step of the executive power betrayed slackness, reluctance, and perfidy; in a word, it destroyed the liberty and independence of Naples. The court looked for support to that mysterious alliance which styles itself Holy. A congress had met at Troppau, where an independent people were to be sentenced for having offended against despotism. The Parliament, guessing the design of the court, applied itself to a speedy reform of the constitution, that it might be finally sanctioned by the king. The prospect of eluding the effects of the revolution in a pacific way being over, a coup-d'état was resorted to; and some members of the diplomatic body then at Naples agreed with Zurlo upon the manner and time of the new experiment. It was known by the public that the congress at Troppau had ended, and much uneasiness prevailed for some days in the capital. On the 7th of December, a royal message was brought into the Parliament by the ministry, in which a vague and conditional promise of a new constitution was substituted for the existing one. It was announced that the king was going to a new congress, and all farther deliberation was forbidden to the representatives. The message was at the same time placarded in the capital, and forwarded into the provinces, and every practice was employed to carry the point by surprise. But all this only tended, for the present, to the triumph of the nation. About 15,000 patriots assembled in arms, and remained together for three days, ready to repel force by force, if necessary. Speedy intelligence was dispatched into the country, and many places rose in arms at the same time. The Parliament, being thus supported, rejected the message, but permitted the king to go to Laybach, provided he should do so to plead the national cause. Then an impeachment was moved against the ministry, and two were called to the bar (Count Zurlo and the Duke of Campochiaro); but the cabal of the courtiers prevailing, it was adjourned sine die. The king, after declaring he never meant to injure the existing constitution, asked again for the opinion of the Par-

liament as to his departure. A new consent was given, and the king embarked aboard an English man-of-war, landed at Leghorn, and proceeded to Laybach.

The departure of the king, to join the enemies of the nation, proved, no doubt, the immediate cause of the fall of Naples, and all Europe has reproached the Neapolitan Parliament for permitting it, as a signal act of blindness. But an English and a French squadron were anchored in the bay; 6000 royal guards were ready to fall upon the people; and the facility of embarking from the palace, and, above all, the firm resolution of the king himself, leave it even now doubtful whether that fatal departure could have been prevented. Certainly a new revolution would have been necessary for this attempt, and the Parliament decided according to what it conceived to be an unavoidable necessity. Yet the virtual failure to the enemies of freedom of their last coup-d'état was worth a victory to the patriots, had they fully known the value of it. The court was humbled, the credit of the Parliament re-established; and the representatives could have still saved the state, had they, during the flow of popular feeling, created a regency of a few tried and bold patriots. By transferring the seat of government to Calabria or to Messina, they ought to have prepared themselves, from that very moment, to have sustained a national war. But the Parliament was incapable of such counsels, which appeared to them rash and unconstitutional. Moderation was their motto. This assembly continued the regency to the Prince-Royal; suffered a weak ministry to succeed to a perfidious one; and slumbered in the capital, attending only to the reform of secondary abuses, while they trusted the cause of the country to the mediation of the king with the allies. Not having availed itself of the favourable moment, its credit and power decayed daily, and the national zeal abated simultaneously. These public perplexities lasted but a short time. The Parliament had already presented, and the Regent had finally sanctioned, the reformed code, when intelligence arrived that the Congress of Laybach had declared, that whatever had been done by the revolution was to be instantly undone at Naples, and that 50,000 Austrian troops were marching to occupy the country, and re-establish its despotic government. These orders were enforced by a letter from the king, in which his majesty, alleging the utter impossibility of obtaining anything from the allies, eagerly advised a ready obedience to them. The Parliament declared that it had no power to consent to the public ruin, and that the king was to be considered as a prisoner in the hands of the enemy. This was its last effort. Laws, indeed, were heaped upon laws for the safety of the state; but the circumstances requiring practical courage far more than debates and statutes, all that was done proved useless. Even whilst the danger grew imminent, the representatives did not dare to assume the whole public power. They were still frightened by the shadow of a compact, which had been already broken by the most responsible of the parties.

The effect of the news from Laybach was, to pro-

duce mixed feelings of apprehension and indignation. The inhabitants of the provinces seemed disposed to defend themselves to the last; but they wanted experience and guides. A numerous militia had but just been formed in all the provinces, and 12,000 young men composed a national guard of an imposing appearance in the capital. But these militia, yet destitute of all military skill and habits, could only serve in a desultory warfare. Of the standing army 12,000 men remained in Sicily, in order to keep it in subjection; the rest were already cooled in the public cause, discordant in their opinions, rather relaxed in discipline, through the introduction of Carbonarism, and certainly not commanded by patriots. The Carbonari, too, fancying they had secured the revolution by the meeting of the Parliament, began to divide among themselves. Carbonarism never could settle itself into a federation before the revolution, and much less after it. Hence the upper council of Naples, which ought to have represented the whole order, and directed it to the same object, was not acknowledged in several provinces, and openly opposed in Salerno, where the opinions rather inclined to democracy. The consent of this council, which at first was required to establish inferior assemblies, was soon neglected. New societies sprang up everywhere. Indeed, all these dissensions were diligently promoted by money, promises, and every wicked practice of the agents of despotism at home and abroad. Confusion and anarchy were made pretexts both to colour and facilitate foreign invasion. After the revolution, Carbonarism ought no doubt to have been abolished by law, as dangerous to liberty itself, had the free government had nothing to fear. But this government, being undermined on one side, and attacked on the other, could not have found, in its early period, a better support than that association. The patriots of the frontier provinces attempted to rally themselves into a federation, which they called the Sammitic League, from the classic name of that country. But the society of the Carbonari was no longer susceptible of being recombined; and it must be confessed, that its untimely dispersion was another cause of the shameful fall of Naples.

Meanwhile an Austrian army, 50,000 strong, advanced by forced marches towards the country. The government, compelled at last by the public clamour, hastily called, by telegraph, the militia from the most distant points, when the enemy was already reaching the frontiers. The militia hastened from every quarter, but only 15,000 had arrived on the borders of Abruzzo, when it was found necessary to fight. General P���� was appointed to command that frontier. Near San Germano, on the left, was an entrenched camp of 30,000 men, most of them veterans who had served in the French wars. The plan of defence was, that, if the enemy attacked the right, the commandant of the left was to relieve it with troops and evolutions; if the left, P���� should do the same. But the distance between the two camps was immense. General P����, with some militia and a few troops, which together did not amount to a third part of the enemy's forces, was obliged to guard a line

of 150 miles in length, and accessible at five points. And the Austrian general, as it appeared afterwards, had directed the main body of his army upon him, well aware that that corps once routed, no more resistance would be offered on the left. P���� posted himself at Civita-Ducale, a frontier town in Abruzzo, three miles from Rieti, where the enemy established his van-guard. The Neapolitan militia, then on the frontier, was composed chiefly of substitutes, badly armed and worse trained, and incessantly harassed by traitorous agents, who represented to them that they should be treated as rebels, if they vainly persisted in opposing the great powers of Europe allied against Naples. The king himself followed the Austrians close, declaring he was at full liberty, and ordering the national forces to welcome the invaders as friends. On a sudden, some battalions of militia, posted at Arguata and Tagliacozzo, disbanded. General P����, dreading the example, resolved to fight instantly. Having distributed his 10,000 men in three columns, he advanced towards Rieti on the 7th of March 1821. His left, led by Marshal Montemajor, was to begin the attack at day-break; but it was ten in the morning before the order was executed, and the Austrians had already concentrated most of their forces near the Cappuccini in the plain, when they were attacked. P���� ordered Marshal Russo to advance at the same time on the right with 200 horse and some infantry, to sustain the charges of the Hungarian cavalry, 4000 strong. The fight continued for six hours with musketry, and the Neapolitans had made several unsuccessful attempts to carry the Cappuccini, when Montemajor suddenly began to withdraw with his division, an hour before sun-set. The enemy, who till then had been perplexed by the unexpected boldness of the militia, having now his right disengaged by the retreat of Montemajor, pushed forward great masses of infantry on his left, which being extended farther than the right of the Neapolitans, threatened to surround them. P���� was then obliged to order a general retreat, which began in good order along his whole line, under the fire of the enemy. But the militia not being trained to retreat while fighting, began to get into disorder; and, breaking their ranks, they hurried to the hills, without any longer obeying their officers. Some companies of the line, which were intermixed with them, imitated the example, and all the troops speedily disbanded. But a few hundred soldiers, headed by a body of gallant officers, covered the retreat in such a way that the enemy was scarcely aware of the disbanding, and did not advance for that night.

This engagement was sufficient to decide the fate of Naples. The Parliament, astonished and discouraged at this first blow of adversity, laid aside all thoughts of farther defence, and secretly sued for pardon from the king, whom they had but just declared to be a prisoner of the enemy. The executive power, which only waited for a single disaster to throw off every constitutional disguise, immediately strained all its nerves to accomplish, in a few days, the subjugation of the country. More shame than loss,

however, had been incurred; and had a patriotic ministry guided the helm, the nation might have been saved, or would have sunk with honour. To transfer the seat of government into Calabria without delay; to remove the yet unbroken first corps from San Germano into the middle provinces, and to collect behind them all the remnants of the corps of Pèpè, there to be rallied into a second line,—were measures that seemed as practicable as they were advisable. Under such arrangements, the arrival of the enemy in the capital might have proved the commencement of his ruin. An immense town, and four citadels held by national forces; the almost impregnable fortress of Gaeta behind; an army 30,000 strong on the front; with Calabria in insurrection, and the Parliament calling to arms a people generally sanguinary and revenging;—these were obstacles almost insuperable against the success of the invaders. Moreover, the Piedmontese revolution breaking out soon after, would have placed the Austrians between two fires, and spread the national war from one extremity of Italy to the other. Thus the Italians would have been perhaps at this hour an independent and free nation, or at least fighting to become so. But scarcely six days had elapsed from the action at Rieti, when the commandants of the divisions and regiments in the camp at San Germano were required, by an order of the day, to frame addresses in the name of the army, to the general-in-chief, requesting him to support we know not what authority of the regent, different from the constitutional one. The army was given to understand, that the capital and several provinces had fallen a prey to anarchy, while they remained as if plunged in stupor and consternation. The first plan of the court seems to have been to march the first corps to Naples, and to put down the constitution with the same national forces which had sworn to defend it. But as a strong feeling of reluctance was evinced by some regiments,

the royal guards were directed to protest openly against all resistance to the king, and this had the effect of dispersing the rest of the troops. The first corps had scarcely decamped from Mignano, and begun to retreat towards the Volturino, when suddenly it disbanded. The royal guards only, 6000 strong, were kept to their banners. Marching speedily to Naples, they shut themselves up in the fortress of Castelnuovo, and began to fire upon the citizens. All was confusion in the capital. The Parliament lost more than half of its members, and all its authority. The mob only waited the arrival of the disbanded soldiers to run to plunder and outrage; whilst murderers were let loose upon the most determined patriots, to prevent them from making any effort to retrieve the public fortune. One member, who had the courage to set out for Calabria, in order to rally the broken ranks of the patriots, was put to death upon approaching Eboli, by assassins, who there waited his arrival. Twenty-four other members remained in the Parliament to the last, appealing against perjury and foreign injustice, and offering an honourable but useless example to their country. In a few days, the fortresses, the arsenal, the ammunition, the navy, the capital, Sicily, and whatever yet remained to the nation for its defence, was delivered up to the Austrians by the executive power. Of the patriots, hunted down in all directions, some took shelter in Spain, Greece, and the Ionian Islands, but the greater number fell into the hands of their enemies. The nation, forsaken by its guides, was struck with astonishment, and made no defence.

With regard to the actual state of the Two Sicilies, it is enough to say, that all the injustice and miseries which can fall upon a conquered people, punish their inhabitants for not having better defended their most valuable rights. Oppression, however, cannot consolidate that absolute power, which has no longer a foundation in the national sentiments.