102

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

sulphurous exhalations, affected the inhabitants with dismayand apprehension. The flourishing towns of Resina and LaTorre del Greco, situated over the buried ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum , were covered by torrents of lava, depriv-ing thirty-two thousand inhabitants of their abodes and pro-perty. The average depth of the lava stream was thirtyfeet, its width five hundred yards ; it formed a mole project-ing into the sea fifty-two yards, twenty feet above the levelof the water, which to a distance all around was renderedboiling hot, so that quantities of fish were found floatingdead upon its surface. This lava covered five thousandacres of valuable vineyard and garden land. The ashes in-jured ninety-six square miles more; the finer portions beingcarried into Calabria, Sicily, and even to Constantinople .Only thirty-three human beings lost their lives, but fourthousand, two hundred valuable beasts were killed or suffo-cated.

Theatres, tribunals, and every kind of business, pendingthose days of horror and disaster, were suspended. Butnot so the work of royal cruelty and vengeance. Arrests,imprisonments, and judicial murders, were carrying onwithout any relaxation, while their “ majesties,” accompa-nied by Acton, retired to the camp at Sessa, distant promo-ters of further miseries to the already afflicted people.

Now at this time, at Naples, as it was here with us in the“good old times” of Charles II., and George III. , minis-ters, judges, informers, spies, and panders numerous, aroseas hounds or jackalls in the royal hunt. As we of Englandhave had our Jefferies and Titus Oates ; our Pitt and Rey-nolds ; Castlereagh , Oliver, and Castles ; so had the Neapo-litans their Vanni, Guidobaldi, Castelcicala, and Speciale.

Numerous were the victims, and all of them distinguishedfor morality and talent. Much do I regret that my limitswill not allow me to record the noble deaths (although in-