Part 13 (1/2)
CHAPTER XIII.
Among the very great number of men and women whom I have known during my life in Italy--some merely acquaintances, and many whom I knew to be, and a few, alas! a very few, whom I still know to be trusty friends--there were many of whom the world has heard, and some perhaps of whom it would not unwillingly hear something more. But time and s.p.a.ce are limited, and I must select as best I may.
I have a very pleasant recollection of ”Garibaldi's Englishman,”
Colonel Peard. Peard had many more qualities and capabilities than such as are essential to a soldier of fortune. The phrase, however, is perhaps not exactly that which should be used to characterise him. He had qualities which the true soldier of fortune should not possess.
His partisans.h.i.+p was with him in the highest degree a matter of conviction and conscientious opinion, and _nothing_ would have tempted him to change his colours or draw his sword on the other side. I am not sure either, whether a larger amount of native brain power, and (in a much greater degree) a higher quality of culture, than that of the general under whom it may be his fortune to serve, is a good part of the equipment of a soldier of fortune. And Peard's relation to Garibaldi very notably exemplified this.
He was a native of Devons.h.i.+re, as was my first wife; we saw a good deal of him in Florence, and I have before me a letter written to her by him from Naples on the 28th of January, 1861, which is interesting in more respects than one. Peard was a man who _would_ have all that depended on him s.h.i.+p-shape. And this fact, taken in conjunction with the surroundings amid which he had to do his work, is abundantly sufficient to justify the growl he indulges in.
”My dear Mrs. Trollope,” he writes, ”I am ashamed to think either of you or of other friends at Florence; it is such an age since I have written to any of you. But I have been daily, from morning to night, hard at work for weeks. The _honour_ of having a command is all very well, but the trouble and worry are unspeakable. Besides, I had such a set under me that it was enough to rile the sweetest tempered man.
Volunteers may be very well in their way. I doubt not their efficiency in repelling an attack in their own country. But defend me from ever again commanding a brigade of English volunteers in a foreign country.
As to the officers, many were most mutinous, and some something worse.
Thank goodness the brigade is at an end. All I now wait for is the settlement of the accounts. If I can get away by the second week in February, I at present think of taking a run as far as Cairo, then crossing to Jerusalem, and back by Jaffa, Beyrout, Smyrna, and Athens to Italy, when I shall hope once more to see you and yours.
”Politics do not look well in Southern Italy, I fear. The Mazzinists have been most active, and have got up a rather strong feeling against Cavour and what they think the peace party. Now Italy must have a little rest for organisation, civil as well as military. They do not give the Government time to do or even propose good measures for the improvement of the country. No sooner are one set of ministers installed than intrigues are on foot to upset them. I firmly believe that the only hope for Southern Italy and Sicily is in a strong military Government. These districts must be treated as _conquered provinces_, and the people educated and taught habits of industry, whether they like it or not. The country is at present in a state of barbarism, and must be saved from that. All that those who are _supposed to be educated_ seem to think about is how they can get a few dollars out of Government.” [I fear the honest Englishman would find that those supposed to be educated in those provinces are as much in a state of barbarism in the matters that offended him as ever.] ”I never saw such a set of harpies in my life. One had the a.s.surance to come to me a few days since, asking if I could not take him on the strength of the brigade, so as to enable him to get six months pay out of the Government. As to peculation, read _Gil Blas_, and that will give you a faint sketch of the customs and habits of all _impiegati_ [civil servants] in this part of Italy. I do not believe that the Southern Italians, taken as a body, know what honesty is.” [All that he says is true to the present day. But the distinction which he makes between the Southern Italians and those of the other provinces is most just, and must be remembered.] ”But that is the fault of the horrid system of tyranny under which they have so long lived. I do not say that the old system must be reformed, it must be totally changed.
Solomon might make laws, but so corrupt are all the _impiegati_, that I doubt if he could get them carried out. Poor Garibaldi is made a tool of by a set of designing intriguers, who will sacrifice him at any moment. He is too honest to see or believe of dishonesty in others. He has no judgment of character. He has been surrounded by a set of blacklegs and swindlers, many among them, I regret to say, English. How I look forward to seeing you all again! Till we meet, believe me
”Most truly yours,
”GIO. [_sic_] PEARD.”
The last portion of this letter is highly interesting and historically well worth preserving. It is entirely and accurately true. And there was no man in existence more fitted by native integrity and hatred of dishonesty on the one hand, and close intimacy with the subject of his remarks on the other, to speak authoritatively on the matter than ”Garibaldi's Englishman.”
The following letter, written, as will be seen, on the eve of his departure for the celebrated expedition to Sicily, is also interesting. It is dated Genoa.
”DEAR MRS. TROLLOPE,--I have been thinking over your observations about _terno_. I don't give up my translation; but would it not be literal enough to translate it, 'the bravest three colours'?
[This refers to the rendering of the lottery phrase _terno_ in a translation by my wife of the _stornello_ of Dall' Ongaro previously mentioned. In the Italian lottery, ninety numbers, 1-90, are always put into the wheel. Five only of these are drawn out. The player bets that a number named by him shall be one of these (_semplice estratto_); or that it shall be the first drawn (_estratto determinato_); or that two numbers named by him shall be two of the five drawn (_ambo_); or that three so named shall be drawn (_terno_).
It will be seen, therefore, that the winner of an _estratto determinato_, ought, if the play were quite even, to receive ninety times his stake. But, in fact, such a player would receive only seventy-five times his stake, the profit of the Government consisting of this pull of fifteen per ninety against the player. Of course, what he ought to receive in any of the other cases is easily (not by me, but by experts) calculable. It will be admitted that the difficulty of translating the phrase in Dall' Ongaro's little poem, so as to be intelligible to English readers, was considerable. The letter then proceeds]:
”I did not start, you will see, direct from Livorno [Leghorn], for Medici wrote me to join him here. Moreover, the steamer by which I expected to have gone, did not make the trip, but was sent back to this city. I will worry you with a letter when anything stirring occurs. We sail to-night. Part went off last evening--1,500. We go in three steamers, and shall overtake the others.
”With kind regards to all friends, believe me,
”Yours very faithfully,
”JOHN PEARD.”
The remarks contained in the former of the two letters here transcribed seem to make this a proper place for recording ”what I remember” of Garibaldi.
My first acquaintance with him was through my very old, and very highly valued, loved, and esteemed friend, Jessie White Mario. The Garibaldi _culte_ has been with her truly and literally the object (apart from her devoted love for her husband, an equally ardent wors.h.i.+pper at the same shrine) for which she has lived, and for which she has again and again affronted death. For she accompanied him in all his Italian campaigns as a hospital nurse, and on many occasions rendered her inestimable services in that capacity under fire. If Peard has been called ”Garibaldi's Englishman,” truly Jessie White Mario deserves yet more emphatically the t.i.tle of ”Garibaldi's Englishwoman.” She has published a large life of Garibaldi, which is far and away the best and most trustworthy account of the man and his wonderful works. She is not blind to the spots on the sun of her adoration, nor does she seek to conceal the fact that there were such spots, but she is a true and loyal wors.h.i.+pper all the same.
Her husband was--alas! that I should write so; for no Indian wife's life was ever more ended by her suttee than Jessie Mario's life has practically been ended by her husband's untimely death!--Alberto Mario was among the, I fear, few exceptions to Peard's remarks on the men who were around Garibaldi. He was not only a man of large literary culture, a brave soldier, an acute politician, a formidable political adversary, and a man of perfect and incorruptible integrity, but he would have been considered in any country and in any society in Europe a very perfect gentleman. He was in political opinion a consistent and fearlessly outspoken Republican. He and I therefore differed _toto coelo_. But our differences never diminished our, I trust, mutual esteem, nor our friendly intercourse. But he was a born _frondeur_. He edited during his latter years a newspaper at Rome, which was a thorn in the side of the authorities. I remember his being prosecuted and condemned for persistently speaking of the Pope in his paper as ”Signor Pecci.” He was sentenced to imprisonment. But all the Government wanted was his condemnation; and he was never incarcerated.