Napoleon Buonaparte , whom we have just seen victoriousover the allies at Toulon , assumed the command of theFrench invading army of Italy , being then in the five andtwentieth year of his age ! Terrified at the presence of theRepublicans on the soil of Italy, King Ferdinand and hisblood-loving queen, redoubled their vigilance, their cruel-ties, and their warlike preparations in which they hoped tofind security from their remoter peninsular position, andthe naval supremacy of their British allies. The particularsof the farcical exhibition of military offensive operations ofthe Neapolitan army, commanded by General Mack and itsking in Tuscany and the Papal States ; its sore defeats;disorganization and utter dispersion, are too well known toallow me to repeat any of the particulars.
Returned to Naples, the king and queen exceeded alltheir former acts of vengeance and spoliation. Every prisonand fort was crammed with every person supposed capableof conceiving a thought of disapprobation of the existing“ social order.” A still more furious war was wagedagainst pantaloons, shoe strings, and short hair. Few ofthe imprisoned were ever heard of after. Castelcicalahad left, as I have above observed, his embassy of London and the social favouritism of George III. , to seek the stillmore congenial occupation of assisting in the legitimateroyal hunt, unto the death, of all entertainers of liberalthoughts.
But to be brief;—after robbing the Banks again, andevery public establishment even to the hospitals, colleges,and cathedrals, to the amount of twenty-one more millionsof ducats, (four millions sterling); moreover, all the Crownjewels, the best part of the precious collections of themuseums, leaving the miserable nation despoiled, dejected,involved in a disastrous war, and multitudes mourning over