CHAPTER X.
"There are some good priests in Italy, but so few, that we call them _Mosche Bianche_ (White Flies)."—_Adventures of Rinaldo._
GARIBALDI SOLICITED BY THE SICILIANS TO ACCEPT THE DICTATORSHIP—DEMAND FOR ARMS—GARIBALDI'S PROCLAMATIONS ESTABLISHING A GOVERNMENT, ETC.—HIS DIFFERENT WAYS OF TREATING GOOD PRIESTS AND JESUITS—REASONS—THE KING OF NAPLES' LIBERAL DECREE—REJECTED.
As soon as Garibaldi landed and went a little way into the interior, all the most influential members of the aristocracy, as well as the free communities, asked him to assume the dictatorship in the name of Victor Emanuel, king of Italy, and the command in chief of the national army.
The first thing, of course, was to organize the military forces. Until then it was an affair of volunteers, who collected round one or another influential man of their town or district, all independent of each other, and remaining together or going home, as they pleased. A decree of the 19th May, from Salemi, instituted a militia, to which all belong from 17 to 50; those from 17 to 30 for active service in the field all over the country; those from 30 to 40 in their provinces, and those from 40 to 50 in their communes. The officers for the active army are named by the commander-in-chief, on the proposal of the commanders of the battalions; those of the second and third categories, only liable to local service, are chosen by the men themselves. But it is rather difficult to act up to this decree under the circumstances. Still, the thing in and about Palermo made progress. The _squadre_ were now regularly paid, and probably they could not be kept together if they were not. They are called "Cacciatori del Etna" (Hunters of Etna).
The Sicilian patriots received pay, while the enthusiastic North Italians, who came to help, had not received a farthing, and did not expect to receive anything.
The native militia wore their brown fustian suit, which is generally worn all over the country, and is so alike that it made a very good uniform.
Not two months after the last disarmament took place, it was astonishing what a quantity of guns seemed to be still in the country. They were, for the most part, short guns, looking rather like old-fashioned single-barrelled fowling pieces than muskets. Most of them were percussion, however, and only a few with the old flint-lock. The longing for arms was extraordinary.
It might be said of Sicily, at that time, as was said of Piedmont in central Italy about the same time, by a writer in Turin:
"There is no pen able to describe, nor imagination strong enough to conceive, the nature of the present Italian movement. It is a nation in the struggles of its second birth. Half the youth of the towns are under arms; young boys of 12 or 13 break their parents' hearts by declaring themselves, every one of them, irrevocably bent on becoming soldiers. There are fourteen universities, and at least four times as many lyceums in the North Italy kingdom, and all of them are virtually closed, for nearly all the students, and many of the professors, are under arms. Those scholars whom mature age unfits for warlike purposes, either sit in parliament, or go out to Palermo to lend a hand to the provisional Italian government. They are everywhere organizing themselves into committees, instituting clubs, or '_circoli_,' and other political associations, inundating the country with an evanescent but not inefficient press. There is a universal migration and transmigration. Venetia and the Marches pour into the Emilia and Lombardy. The freed provinces muster up volunteers for Sicily. From Sicily ghost-like or corpse-like state prisoners—the victims of Bourbon tyranny, the remnants of the wholesale batches of 1844 and 1848, the old, long-forgotten companions of the Bandiera, the friends of Poerio, the adventurers of the ill-fated Pisacane's expedition—creep forth from the battered doors of their prison, stretch their long-numbed limbs in the sun, gasp in their first inhalations of free air; then they embark for Genoa, where the warm sympathy of an applauding multitude awaiting them at their landing greets their ears, still stunned with the yells and curses of the fellow galley-slaves they have left behind. Such a sudden and universal swarming and blending together of the long-severed tribes of the same race the world never witnessed. Under the Turin porticoes you hear the pure, sharp Tuscan, the rich, drawling Roman, the lisping Venetian, the close ringing Neapolitan, as often as the harsh, guttural, vernacular Piedmontese."
GARIBALDI'S PROCLAMATIONS ESTABLISHING A PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT, ETC.
"_Italy and Victor Emanuel!_
"JOSEPH GARIBALDI, Commander-in-Chief of the National forces in Sicily, etc., considering the decree of May 14, on the Dictatorship, decrees:
"ART. 1.—A governor is instituted for each of the 24 districts of Sicily.
"ART. 2.—The governor will reside in the chief place of the district, and wherever circumstances may require his presence in the commune that shall be deemed by him best adapted for serving as a centre of his operations.
"ART. 3.—The governor will reëstablish in every commune the Council and all the functionaries, such as they were before the Bourbonic occupation. He will replace by other individuals such as are deceased, or who from other causes may not appear.
"ART. 4.—The following will be excluded from the civic council, and cannot be members of the corporation, or communal judges, or agents of the public administration:
"(_a._) All such as shall favor, directly or indirectly, the restoration of the Bourbons.
"(_b._) All such as have filled or do fill public situations in the name of the Power now tormenting Sicily.
"(_c._) All such as are notoriously opposed to the emancipation of the country.
"ART. 5.—The governor will have to decide on the grounds of incapacity as stated in the foregoing article, and in case of need will exercise the powers conferred on the district committees by the decrees of July 22, 1848, and Feb. 22, 1849.
"ART. 6.—The governor will appoint in each chief place of the district a quæstor, and in each commune a delegate for the public safety; in the cities of Palermo, Messina, and Catania, an assessor for each quarter.
"The delegates and assessors will be, in the exercise of their functions, dependent on the quæstor, and the quæstor on the governor.
"ART. 7.—The governor will preside over all the public branches of the administration, and direct their proceedings.
"ART. 8.—The sentences, decisions and public acts will be headed with the phrase, 'In the name of VICTOR EMANUEL, King of Italy.'
"ART. 9.—The laws, decrees and regulations, as they existed down to the 15th of May, 1859, will continue in force.
"ART. 10.—All regulations contrary to the present one are cancelled.
"G. GARIBALDI, "F. CRISPI, Secretary of State.
"ALCAMO, _May 17, 1860_."
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"_Italy and Victor Emanuel!_
"JOSEPH GARIBALDI, Commander-in-Chief, etc., decrees:
"1. In every free commune of Sicily the municipality will have to ascertain the state of the local treasuries, and what small sums are there. A report of the same, signed by the Municipal Chief, the Treasurer, and Municipal Chancellor, will have to be drawn up.
"2. The tax on the articles of food, and every kind of tax imposed by Bourbonic authority since May 15, 1849, are abolished.
"6. In the communes occupied by the enemy's forces, every citizen is bound to refuse to the Bourbonic government payment of the taxes, which taxes from this day henceforth belong to the nation.
"G. GARIBALDI. "FRANCESCO CRISPI, Secretary of State.
"ALCAMO, _May 19, 1860_."
To account for the different ways in which Garibaldi treated some of the ecclesiastics in Sicily, two or three facts should be borne in mind. Innumerable instances have proved, in our day, as well as in various past ages, that some of the orders of monks and nuns are naturally predisposed to be liberal, humane and inoffensive, by the doctrines which they are taught, their inert state of life, the manner in which they are brought into partial contact with the world, or the oppression which they endure from their superiors, while other classes are inclined in opposite directions by influences of a contrary nature. Luther probably owed some of his freedom of thought, and his attachment to the doctrine of justification by faith, to the system to which he was trained in his convent, and became acquainted with some of the good traits of common people, by receiving their daily charity when a poor boy. The mendicant monks in Palermo, because they daily mingled with the people and received their bounty, took a leading part in the insurrection, and were forward and faithful aids of Garibaldi. The Italian patriots know how to discriminate between good and bad priests, many of whom are their enemies, either open or secret, but some of whom have always been their staunch friends. Several of the Sicilian exiles in America have acknowledged their obligations to priests for assistance or for life.
But the Jesuits! Of them there is never any doubt. They are always regarded as deadly foes, and are generally treated very summarily. Exile—immediate expulsion—is the rule toward them; and this short method, like the suppression of their society, has been forced upon those whom they operate against by the necessities of the Jesuits' own creating. While, therefore, Garibaldi treated some of the clergy with friendliness and confidence, he turned the Jesuits out of Sicily almost the first day.
The King of Naples, as his father did in the previous revolution, issued a decree on the 28th of June, promising privileges to his subjects, and concord with Victor Emanuel: but his word was utterly despised by the people.
NAPLES.
The following is the text of the royal decree:
"1. General amnesty.
"2. The formation of a new ministry which shall, in the briefest possible time, draw up a statute on the basis of the Italian and national representative constitutions. The formation of this ministry is confided to Commendatore Spinelli.
"3. Concord shall be established with the king of Sardinia, for the interest of both crowns and of Italy.
"4. The flag of the kingdom shall be the Italian tricolor with the royal arms of Naples in the middle.
"5. Sicily shall receive analogous institutions, capable of satisfying the wants of the populations, and shall have a prince of the royal house for Viceroy.
"The Commendatore Spinelli is reported to have laid down the following conditions for his acceptance of the Presidentship of the ministry: The immediate banishment of the Queen Mother; impeachment of the displaced ministry; an immediate publication of the electoral law, in order to the prompt convocation of parliament; lastly, an alliance offensive and defensive with Piedmont, with reciprocal guarantees.
"On receiving the dispatches announcing that the king had proclaimed a constitution at Naples, Garibaldi decided that the Sicilian committee should assemble on the 18th inst. to vote on a _plebiscitum_ (universal suffrage,) proposing immediate annexation to Piedmont.
"The fundamental point of the programme of the commander Spinelli, was the formation of an Italian Confederation, as recommended by the emperor of the French. This confederation to be essentially of a defensive character, and the independence of every State to be maintained, although national unity may be favored."