Volume I Part 18 (1/2)

At the Queenwood community, in Robert Owen's day, no contract of this kind was thought of, and any one who declined to leave could defy the governor, until he was ejected by force--a process which did not harmonise with ”Harmony Hall.”

De Rohan met the Excursionists at Palermo on their disembarkation.

”Captain Styles” was prudently absent, and no more was heard of him. The spurious commissions could not be recognised, and commotion naturally arose among those who had been defrauded. Captain Sarsfield, Colonel Peard, known as ”Garibaldi's Englishman,” De Rohan, Captain Scott, and others on the spot, with colourable pretensions to authority, took different views of the situation. Appeals were made to the Committee in London, on whose minutes stormy telegrams are recorded. Mr. Craufurd, though he had the prudent reticence of his race, would sometimes fall into impetuous expressions. Yet the second statement of his first thought would be faultless. This quality was so conspicuous that it interested me.

The first man of the Legion killed was young Mr. Bontems, only son of a well-known tradesman in the City of London--a fine, ingenuous fellow.

He was shot by the recklessness of a medical student of the London University, as Bontems stood in a mess-room at Palermo. It was said not to be the first death caused by the criminal thoughtlessness of the same person. Mr. Southall, another London volunteer like young Bontems, was a man of genuine enthusiasm, character, and promise. He became an orderly officer to Garibaldi, by whom he was trusted and to whom he gave the black silk cravat he wore on entering Naples.*

* Southall forwarded it to me. A revolver and case was sent me by request of a soldier who died on the field.

When Garibaldi retired to his island home, he sent to England the following testimony of the services and character of the Excursionists:--

”Caprera,

”Jan. 26, 1861.

”... They [the British Legion] came late. But they made ample amends for this defect, not their own, by the brilliant courage they displayed in the slight engagements they shared with us near the Volturno, which enabled me to judge how precious an a.s.sistance they would have rendered us had the war of liberation remained longer in my hands. In every way the English volunteers were a proof of the goodwill borne by your n.o.ble nation towards the liberty and independence of Italy.

”Accept, honoured Mr. Ashurst, the earnest a.s.surance of my grateful friends.h.i.+p, and always command yours,

”G. Garibaldi.”

Allowing for Garibaldi's generosity in estimating the services of the Legion, it remains true that the majority deserved this praise. Many were of fine character. Many were young men of ingenuousness and bright enthusiasm, prompt to condone lack of military knowledge by n.o.ble intrepidity in the field.

The Legion cost the Italian Government some expense. Claims were recognised liberally. The men were sent back to England overland, and each one had a provision order given him to present at every refreshment station at which the trains stopped. Count Cavour was a better friend of Italian freedom than even Mazzini knew. It was only known after Cavour's death, how he had secretly laboured to drag his country from under the heel of Austria. Cavour had the friendly foresight to give orders that the members of the English Legion were to be supplied on their journey home with double rations, as Englishmen ate more than Italians. The Cavourian distinction was much appreciated.

The sums due to the men until their arrival in England were paid by the Sardinian Consul (whose office was in the Old Jewry), on a certificate from me that the applicant was one of the Legion.

A request came to me from Italy for a circ.u.mstantial history of the Legion and such suggestions as experience had furnished. The story made quite a book, which I sent to Dr. Bertani. When after his death I was in Milan, I learned from a member of his family that no one knew what had become of it. And so I briefly tell the story again, as there is no one else to tell it Bertani was the confidant and favourite physician of Mazzini and Garibaldi. No one knew so well or so much as he who were the makers of Italian Unity. What has become of his papers?

Among friends of Italy who appeared at our council in London was Captain Sarsfield, the son of the Duke of Somerset. Pallid, with an expression of restrained energy, handsome beyond any face I had seen, it might have been carved by a Grecian sculptor. His high breeding struck me before I knew who he was. He took out for me an important letter to Garibaldi, who had then no postal address. On Sarsfield's return home, he took, as was his delight, a furious ride in a high wind. Was.h.i.+ngton did the same, and it killed him, as it did Captain Sarsfield. Difficulty of breathing ensued, and it was necessary that Dr. Williams should be called in to perform an operation--all in vain. The d.u.c.h.ess of Somerset lay all night on the carpet-floor by the dead body of her son, for whom she grieved exceedingly. In her distress she said Dr. Williams had been wanting in promptness or in skill. His great reputation could not be affected by an accusation made in agony, and his own explanation would vindicate him.

But he took the brutal course of dragging the distressed and distracted mother into the law courts. In consequence of remarks I published upon this unfeeling and egotistic outrage, the d.u.c.h.ess sent me a letter of thanks, and requested me to call at her residence. So much for the two men who mainly made Italy a nation. What Castelar said to the Italian patriots in general, he might have addressed to Garibaldi and Mazzini individually:--

”That which Julius II. could not effect with his cannon, nor Leo X. with his arts, that which Savonarola could not make a reality by giving himself to G.o.d, nor Machiavelli by giving himself to the Devil, has been done by you. You have made Italy one, you have made Italy free, you have made Italy independent.”

CHAPTER XXI. JOHN STUART MILL, TEACHER OF THE PEOPLE

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mill]

One reason for commencing with the remark that John Stuart Mill was born on May 20, 1806, at No. 13, Rodney Street, Islington, London, is to notify the coincidence that Gladstone, another man of contemporaneous distinction, was born in Rodney Street, Liverpool, three years later.

Rodney Street, London, where Mill was born, was a small, narrow, second-rate, odd, out-of-the-way suburban thoroughfare. But in those days Islington had the characteristics of a rural retreat A little above this Rodney Street, in what is now known as the Pentonville Road, stood the ”Angel,” a favourite hostelry, where Thomas Paine wrote part of one of his famous books, near the period of Mill's birth.

The familiar books concerning J. S. Mill,* treat mainly of his eminence as a thinker.

* Notably those of Professor A. Bain and Mr. Courtney.

I concern myself with those personal characteristics which won for him the regard and honour of the insurgent industrial cla.s.ses--insurgent, not in the sense of physical rebellion against authority, but of intellectual rebellion against error, social inferiority and insufficiency of means. Mill regarded the press as the fortress of freedom. All his life he gave money to establish such defences, and left the copyright of his works to Mr. John Morley, to be applied in aid of publications open to the expression of all reasoned opinion, having articles signed by the names of the writers. Mr. Mill was the first who made provision for the expression of unfriended truth. It would be a surprising biography which recorded the causes he aided and the persons whom he helped. He was not one of those philosophers, ”selfish, cold and wise,” who, fortunate and satisfied with their own emanc.i.p.ation from error, leave others to perish in their ignorance. Mill helped them,* as did Place, Bentham, Grote, Roebuck, Molesworth, and other leaders of the great Utilitarian party. For ten years I knew Mr. Mill to receive and write letters of suggestion from the India House. He would see any one, at any hour, interested in the progress of the people. As Mr.

John Morley has said in the _Fortnightly Review_, ”It was easier for a workman than for a princess to obtain access to him.”

* Like Samuel Morley, he took trouble to aid honest endeavour, often irrespective of agreement with it.