Garibaldi's Early Years

THE publication, somewhat earlier than was expected, of Garibaldi’s Autobiography ¹ will revive interest in that extraordinary man, and in that crisis through which Europe has been passing ever since the destruction of the Bastille marked the fall of feudalism. Penetrating as deeply as we can towards the heart of this transformation, we must declare that our age only half knows itself. It may well lie that when men look back, two or three hundred years hence, upon this nineteenth century, they will announce its salient characteristic to have been, not scientific, not inventive, but romantic. Science will soon bury our present heaps of facts under larger accumulations, from the summit of which broader theories may he scanned ; to-morrow will make to-day’s wonderful invention old-fashioned and insufficient: but the romance with which this later time has been charged will exercise an increasing fascination over poets and novelists and historians, as the years roll on. Oblivion swallows up material achievements, but great deeds never grow old. That many of our contemporary writers should not have heard this note of the age argues that they, rather than the age, are prosaic and commonplace. For to what other period shall we turn for a richer store of those vicissitudes and contrasts in fortune which make up the real romance, the profound tragedy, of life ? Everywhere the dissolution of a society rooted in mediæval traditions is accompanied by confusion and struggle, — the birthpangs of a new order. Classes whose separation seemed permanent are thrown together, and antagonistic elements are strangely mixed; there is strife, and doubt, and excess ; sudden combinations are suddenly rent by discords; anachronisms flourish side by side with innovations ; new institutions wear old names, and old abuses mask in new disguises.

Nor in Europe only has this spectacle been going forward. The United States also have witnessed similarly rapid transmutations, partly due to other causes. Within a generation we have seen a gigantic national upheaval: three millions of artisans, clerks, merchants, and lawyers were transformed by the magic of a drum-beat into soldiers ; and then, the conflict being over, soldiers and uniforms vanished, and the labors of peace were resumed. Lincoln, a country lawyer, became the President of the nation, and Grant, an obscure tanner, rose to the command of the mightiest army of modern times. If we read of such transpositions in ancient history, great would be our astonishment, significant the moral we should draw from them: to posterity our history will be ancient, and its significance clear.

Among all the political achievements of our century, none, perhaps, has more of charm or nobleness than the redemption of Italy. Whether we look at the variety and difficulty of the undertaking, or at the careers of the leaders and the temper of the people who engaged in it, we are alike allured and amazed. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Italy had never been united under one government: nevertheless, from the time of Dante on, the aspiration towards national unity was kept burning in every patriotic Italian heart. During the Middle Ages, little republics won independence by overthrowing their feudal lords ; then they quarreled among themselves, and then they became the prey and appanage of a few strong families. The Bishop of Rome, forgetful of his spiritual mission, lusted after worldly power, established himself as a temporal sovereign, and elevated his cardinals into temporal princes. Foreign invaders — Normans, Spaniards, Germans, French — swept over the peninsula in successive waves ; bloodshed and pillage signalized their coming, and corruption was the slime they left behind them. One by one, the refuges of independence were submerged in the flood of servitude ; until at last Venice herself, become merely the mummy of a republic, crumbled to dust at Napoleon’s touch. Napoleon promised, but did not give, to Italy the unity or the freedom which she still dreamed of; he parceled her anew into duchies and kingdoms. By that act lie broke down ancient barriers and opened a new prospect. Italians beheld the old order, which had so long oppressed them that many believed it must endure perpetually, suddenly dissolved, and in its stead a change, although not the change they longed for. Still, any change, in such circumstances, implies fresh possibilities ; and the Italians passed from a lethargy which had seemed hopelessly enthralling into a restless wakefulness.

The twenty years of the reign of Force, of which Napoleon was the embodiment, ended at Waterloo. Europe, exhausted, sank back into conservatism, and was ruled for thirty years by Craft, of which Metternich was the symbol.² The Congress of Vienna reimposed the past upon Italy. Monarchs and bureaucrats, like children who amuse themselves by “ making believe ” things are not as they are, would have it appear that the deluge of revolution, with all its mighty wrecks and subversions, had never happened. The Pope was restored in the States of the Church; the Bourbons ruled again in Naples and Sicily ; an Austrian was Archduke of Tuscany ; Parma and Piacenza were assigned to Napoleon’s wife, Maria Louisa ; Venetia and Lombardy were given as spoils to Austria; an absolutist king reigned in Piedmont. Evidently, the revolution had been but a summer thunder-storm, for the sun of despotism was shining once more. The sun shone; but what of the sultry air ? What of the threatening clouds along the horizon ? Were these the fringe of the dispersing storm, or the portents of another ? Mutterings and rumblings, too, Carbonari plottings, and quickly extinguished flashes of insurrection, — did not these omens belie Diplomacy’s pretense that the eighteenth century had been happily resuscitated to exist forever ?

It was during this interval of reaction and relapse, when hope was stifled and energy slept; when victorious despotism flattered itself with the belief that the Napoleonic episode had demonstrated the absurdity of Liberalism; when Metternich, the spider of Schönbrunn, was spinning his cobwebs of chicane across the path to liberty, — then it was that the generation which should live to see Italy free and united was getting what learning it could in the Jesuit-ridden schools. Of this generation the most romantic figure was Giuseppe Garibaldi. He had the distinction of being revered, while still alive, as an epic hero ; and we cannot doubt that, both by the broad, permanent traits of bis character and the startling achievements of his career, he will be a hero to posterity. His life may furnish some future Tasso with a nobler theme than Godfrey’s; neither invention nor myth can add anything to its unique poetic quality. He lived dramas as naturally as Shakespeare wrote them. The commonplace could not befall him ; every event had the surprise and charm of romance. His magic influence, not among his countrymen only, but among whatever people he was thrown with, proved that beneath the surface of our nineteenthcentury society, which seems sealed by a dense scum of selfishness, there is a mighty volume of emotion and unselfish enthusiasm, which, once given an outlet and a direction, will sweep all before it. Two things were necessary for Garibaldi’s success : his own unshakable devotion to an ideal, and a worthy ideal. Had his devotion been less, he could not have persisted to the end against obstacles and defeats ; had the cause been circumscribed, his zeal might have narrowed into the fanaticism of a Torquemada or a Calvin.

This recently published Autobiography reveals the man in no new light. It will not alter the verdict which historians have already reached concerning the chief events in which he took part. During his life he was as outspoken as a spoilt child, making no secret of his likes and dislikes. In this final confession, he does not condescend to support his statement of disputed points by documents or witnesses. “ This is the fact as I saw it,” is the purport of every page ; and you feel sure that volumes of contradictory evidence could not change the aspect of the fact for him. He writes so freely from his feelings that some readers, particularly Anglo-Saxons, may be prejudiced against his intensity : let such remember that the superlative was his positive degree, and that the Italian temperament, aided by the most flexible of modern languages, has a habit of vivid expression which f oreigners at first distrust.³ But that he wished to be sincere cannot be doubted. His Autobiography has the peculiar value of being the chronicle of a life which was actually romantic. Its various parts were written at different periods (which the editor does not always state), and present to us Garibaldi’s impressions of events soon after their occurrence, and not in a calm, later retrospect. Although this causes a slight confusion, it enables us to perceive that his opinions were intrinsically immutable, and that there is little mystery requiring explanation in his acts. When you have grasped his dominant purpose, you will not be puzzled by casual inconsistencies. He himself summarizes his character as follows: “A tempestuous life, composed of good and of evil, as I believe of the large part of the world. A consciousness of having sought the good always, for me and for my kind. If I have sometimes done wrong, certainly I did it involuntarily. A hater of tyranny and falsehood, with the profound conviction that in them is the principal origin of the ills and of the corruption of the human race. Hence a republican, this being the system of honest folk, the normal system, willed by the majority, and consequently not imposed with violence and with imposture. Tolerant and not exclusive, incapable of imposing my republicanism by force; on the English, for instance, if they are contented with the government of Queen Victoria. And however contented they may be, their government should be considered republican. A republican, but evermore persuaded of the necessity of an honest and temporary dictatorship at the head of those nations which, like France, Spain, and Italy, are the victims of a most pernicious Byzantinism. . . . I was copious in praises of the dead, fallen on fields of battle for liberty. I praised less the living, especially my comrades. When I felt myself urged by just rancor against those who wronged me, I strove to placate my resentment before speaking of the offense and of the offender. In every writing of mine, I have always attacked clericalism, more particularly because in it I have always believed that I found the prop of every despotism, of every vice, of every corruption. The priest is the personification of lies, the liar is a thief, the thief is a murderer, — and I could find for the priest a series of infamous corollaries.” These tenets, written on the eve of his sixty-fifth birthday (July 3, 1872), had been Garibaldi’s guide through life ; experience hut confirmed him in them, as we shall observe in examining that life.

Giuseppe (Joseph) Garibaldi was born at Nice, July 4, 1807, in a house near the water’s edge. His father was a sailor, thrifty enough to be master of a small craft of his own ; his mother was a simple, pious woman. He records but few incidents of his childhood, but in these few his tender-heartedness and courage are already manifest. Thus he was so much grieved at having broken a grasshopper’s leg that he shut himself in his room, and wept bitterly. Upon another occasion, he rescued a woman from drowning. His earliest masters were two priests, from whom he learnt nothing ; then a certain layman named Arena taught him a smattering of Italian, writing, and arithmetic, and he picked up a little history. But he was fonder of play than of study, and conspired with some of his mates to run away to Genoa, merely for the excitement of the adventure. So they stocked a sail-boat with a few provisions, but had hardly got opposite to Monaco when a cutter, sent in pursuit by Garibaldi’s father, overtook them, and brought them home, mortified. He played truant no more, but his predilection for roving was so strong that at last, when he was fourteen, his parents consented to his going to sea.

His first voyage was on the ship Costanza, bound for Odessa ; his second, on his father’s tartane, the Santa Reparata, resulted in an excursion to Rome.

Immense the impression the Holy City made on his imagination ! He saw not the Iiome of the Cæsars, nor the Rome of the Popes,—the city whose monuments entomb twenty-five centuries of history; but, he says, “ the Rome of the future, that Rome of which I have never despaired, — shipwrecked, at the point of death, buried in the depth of American forests ; the Rome of the regenerating idea of a great people ; the dominating idea of whatever Past or Present could inspire in me, as it has been through all my life. Oh, Rome became then dear to me above all earthly existences. I adored her with all the fervor of my soul. In short, Rome for me is Italy, and I see no Italy possible save in the union, compact or federate, of her scattered members. Rome is the symbol of united Italy, under whatever form you will. And the most infernal work of the papacy was that of keeping her morally and materially divided.” ⁴

Strange thoughts these for a sailor lad of eighteen to be revolving in his breast, as he wandered through the streets of Rome, about the year 1825, just at the time when Metternichism had the upper hand in Europe, and was discouraging, by gagging and imprisonment, the utterers of such sentiments. But Russian Czars themselves and Romish Inquisitors have never succeeded in devising a gag for the thinking of the most rebellious thoughts : and the youthful Garibaldi, perhaps under the very dome of St. Peter’s, nursed his aspirations unsuspected, and lie quitted Rome with that passionate ideal tormenting his heart.

Several years of seafaring followed : voyages to Sardinia, to the Canaries, to the Levant. Once, while at Constantinople, he fell sick, and had to be left behind when his ship sailed. War breaking out between Turkey and Russia, he was detained several months, and, having spent all his money, he served as tutor to three boys. On his departure, he was entrusted Avith the command of a trader, bound for Port Mahon, and thenceforth on his voyages he had the dignity of master. But his patriotic aspirations seduced him more and more from meditation to action. He sought books treating of Italian liberty and persons consecrated to it; and when one day a young Ligurian unfolded to him the clandestine efforts then making, “ Certainly,” he says, “ Columbus did not experience so great a satisfaction at the discovery of America as I experienced at finding that there ivere those AVIIO occupied themselves in the redemption of our fatherland.” Mazzini, who had been banished from Piedmont in 1830, had founded the revolutionary society of Young Italy, and to this Garibaldi, like most of the spirited young Italians at that time, Avas drawn. But the Piedmontese government was vigilant, because fearful; Garibaldi was suspected of conspiring, and had to flee for his life. “ Disguised as a peasant, and proscribed,” lie records laconically, “ at seven in the evening of February 5, 1834, I quitted Genoa by the Porta della Lanterna. Here begins my public career.” Under the assumed name Giuseppe Pane he escaped to Marseilles, where, a few days later, he read in a newspaper that the Piedmontese government had sentenced him to death. After months of idleness,—not Avholly idle, however, for he volunteered to nurse the cholera patients in the hospital, an epidemic having beset Marseilles, — a chance came to reship. He took a cargo to the Black Sea, another to Tunis, and then sailed for Rio Janeiro. There he met a fellow-exile, Rossetti, and for a Avhile they kept a shop. “ But for business,” he remarks, “ Rossetti and I were not adapted; ” and when a more congenial occupation offered itself, they accepted it.

The province of Rio Grande do Sul, which forms the southern triangle of the Empire of Brazil, was then in revolt, having declared itself a republic. Bento Gonzales, its president, had been captured, with his staff, by the Brazilians, and brought to Rio Janeiro. Garibaldi and Rossetti could not remain indifferent when a people was fighting for its liberty. Procuring letters of marque, they equipped a privateer, — a mere fishing-smack, of small size, — which they named the Mazzini, sailed out of the Brazilian capital with but twelve companions, hoisted the tricolor flag, and bade defiance to an empire! Don Quixote himself never launched on an enterprise apparently so foolhardy. But fortune favored them at the start: they captured a prize laden with coffee, and then sailed for the Rio de la Plata. Rossetti went to Montevideo to organize revolt by land, but the Mazzini, instead of being hailed as an ally, was treated as a pirate, and her crew were threatened with arrest. Supplies being exhausted, and there being no hope of replenishing them in any port, Garibaldi stood along the coast until he came to a cattle-ranch. They had no skiff, so he and a sailor floated ashore on a plank. Proceeding to the ranchero’s dwelling, at some distance inland, he was hospitably received by the ranchero’s wife, with whom he discussed Italian poetry until her husband’s return, when an ox was soon bargained for.

It was on this expedition that Garibaldi first saw the pampas, those immense South American prairies, with their herds of wild horses, cattle, gazelles, and emus, of which he always speaks enthusiastically. The ocean-like expanse of billowy grass, the sense of vast freedom, the tranquillity and beauty of Nature, and the absence of the arts and artificiality of man captivated him. The independent settlers, too, veritable centaurs, “ almost born in the saddle,” he says, “ downright, fearless, hospitable, were beings after his own pattern. He gives in sundry places many very vivid descriptions of that half-Bedouin, halfcivilized life of the guacho with his terrible bolas, of the native Indian who still had traits of pre-European days, of the half-breed and the matrero — now cowboy, now booty-seeker, — of mustangtaming and beef - salting. Although many interesting quotations might be made, let one suffice as a specimen. How beautiful,” he exclaims, “ the stallion of the pampa! His lips never felt the chill restraint of the bit, and his glistening hack, never burdened by the seat of man, shines like a diamond in the brightness of the sun. His splendid but uncombed mane heats his sides, as the haughty one, gathering the scattered mares or fleeing the persecution of man, outruns the swiftness of the wind. His natural hoof, never soiled in the stall of man, is clearer than ivory, and his luxuriant tail flaunts like a pennon in the breath of the pampa-wind, protecting the noble animal from the torment of insects.”

Garibaldi and his comrade had hardly regained the Mazzini, before an attack was made upon them by two boat-loads of enemies from Montevideo. After a desperate fight, the assailants were beaten off, but during the combat Garibaldi had been struck down by a bullet in the neck. There was no surgeon to attend him; no pilot to steer the Mazzini to the La Plata, towards which her course was laid. Moreover, several of the crew, terrified at the prospect of being dealt with as pirates, showed signs of mutiny. A chart was brought to Garibaldi. His eyes fell upon the name, printed in the largest type, of Santa Fe, a town on the Parana. Unable to speak, he put his finger on the place, and for Santa Fé the privateer was accordingly headed. Garibaldi slowly recovered. When the adventurers reached Gualeguay, on the same river, they were arrested, but treated not harshly. For several months Garibaldi was held in loose confinement, being permitted to go about the town, and even to ride into the suburbs. At last, however, he planned an escape, and had ridden more than fifty miles southward, when his guide betrayed him to a squad of pursuers. Bound hand and foot on his horse, he was brought back to Gualeguay, where Millan, the commandant, having first cut him in the face with a whip, caused him to be hung up for two hours by cords tied round his wrists. That torture ended, the prisoner was thrown into a dungeon, where he would have died, he says, but for the kind offices of a woman, who risked the commandant’s displeasure in nursing him. Later, he was removed to Bajada, the capital of the province, and after two months he was released. He returned to Montevideo, to find his name among the proscribed, but friends concealed him, as they had concealed Rossetti.

Nothing discouraged, Garibaldi and Rossetti determined to renew their exertions in behalf of the republic of Rio Grande. They took a long ride across Uruguay, and presented themselves before President Gonzales, who had returned from his Brazilian captivity, and was prosecuting the war. Garibaldi was commissioned to fit out two cruisers, the Republicano and the Rio Pardo, and he enlisted for them a motley, cosmopolitan crew of sailors and marines, typical of that mixture of races which composes a South American state. There were freedmen, both negroes and mulattoes ; natives, of Spanish and Portuguese descent; Italians and other Europeans ; a few North Americans ; and those nondescript, mongrel adventurers still to be met in South American ports under the name of frères de la côte. Garibaldi took command of the Rio Pardo ; John Grigg, who had renounced a fortune in the United States in order to fight (and die, as it happened) for freedom in Rio Grande, was captain of the Republicano ; Rossetti stayed ashore to edit a newspaper, for in South America, as in Europe, the journalist was a powerful agent of revolution.

We need not follow in detail the adventures of Garibaldi and his comrades. There was constant lighting by sea and by land, daily perils, hair-breadth escapes, varied now and then by moments of quiet, spent in the society of gracious ladies, sisters of President Gonzales, who lived on his large estate at Camacuan. Compared with the wars and battles of modern Europe and the United States, these exploits seem insignificant ; nevertheless, they decided the fate of territories as large as France, and they called for a display of those martial virtues which beget heroism in any emergency. The reader who delights in tales of adventure will find a rare entertainment in these. What marches through the passes of snow-clad sierras, and through the trackless wilderness of primeval forests ! What raids across the pampas, to capture some hostile position, or to anticipate attack! What hand-to-hand encounters on shipdecks ! What hunger, thirst, cold, storms, added to the violence of enemies ! One might believe that the strongest instinct in men here below is the instinct of extermination ; that the purpose of each is to destroy all his fellows, and to become the unchallenged monarch of a world inhabited only by himself.

When South America shall have passed out of the state of chronic revolution into that of civilized order, Garibaldi’s account of the former will be invaluable to the historian, who will observe that there, as elsewhere, social forces first manifest themselves by a lawless exuberance; that the period of anarchy is succeeded by a period of monarchy (whether the Strong Man have the name of monarch, or not) ; and that then, slowly, temperance, order, harmony, and liberty supersede the lower methods.

But our interest at this time is fixed on Garibaldi, and we come now to one of the marking episodes in his life. At the outset of one of his marine expeditions his vessels were east away in a storm. He succeeded in swimming to the shore, but his dearest companions perished. He felt lonely, dispirited; and though he was soon in command of another cruiser,, the excitements of war could no longer dissipate his melancholy. “In short,” he says, in a passage too characteristic to be omitted, “ I had need of a human being to love me immediately ; to have one near without whom existence was growing intolerable to me. Although not old, I understood men well enough to know how hard it is to find a true friend. A woman ? Yes, a woman ; for I always deemed her the most perfect of creatures, and, whatever may be said, amongst women it is infinitely easier to find a loving heart. I was pacing the quarterdeck of the Itaparica, ruminating my dismal thoughts, and, after reasonings of all kinds, I decided finally to seek a woman, to draw me out of my tiresome and unbearable condition. I cast a casual glance towards the Barra, — that was the name of a rather high hill at the entrance of the lagune, towards the south, on which were visible some simple and picturesque habitations. There, with the aid of the glass which I habitually carried when on deck, I discovered a young woman. I had myself set ashore in her direction. I disembarked, and going towards the house where was the object of my expedition, I had not reached her before I met a man of the place, whom I had known at the beginning of our stay. He asked me to take coffee in his house. We entered, and the first person who met my gaze was she whose appearance had caused me to come ashore. It was Anita, the mother of my sons ; the companion of my life, in good and evil fortune; the woman whose courage I have so often envied. We both remained rapt and speechless, reciprocally looking at each other, like two persons who do not meet for the first time, and who seek in the features one of the other something to assist recollection. At last I greeted her, and said, “ Thou must be mine.’ I spoke but little Portuguese, and uttered these hardy words in Italian. However, I was magnetic in my presumption. I had drawn a knot, sealed a compact, which death alone could break. I had met a forbidden treasure, yet a treasure of great price. If there was wrong, it was wholly mine. And there was wrong. Yes, two hearts were knitted together with immense love, but the existence of an innocent man was shattered. She is dead; I, unhappy; he, avenged. Yes, avenged. I recognized the great wrong I did, that day when, hoping still to have her alive, I grasped the pulse of a corpse, and wept tears of despair. I erred greatly, — I erred alone.”

Verily, as I remarked above, the commonplace could not befall Garibaldi. A man of such impulsiveness and emotion would have adorned that “ society in a state of nature ” which Jean Jacques believed had once flourished, and wished to see return. This meeting and instantaneous infatuation remind us of Don Juan and Haidee. A few nights later Garibaldi carried Anita off to his ship, clandestinely, as it appears, and they were wedded when they reached another port. The “ innocent, wronged man ” was Anita’s father, who had betrothed her against her will. She was a companion matching Garibaldi’s ideal, and he, susceptible and chivalrous, in an almost mediaeval way, to women, cherished her passionately. She shared his wild fortunes and hardships ; she was an indefatigable horsewoman, a dead shot, and, upon occasion, she could touch off a cannon.

The war dragged on interminably; generally the advantage lay with the Brazilians, owing to their superior force and generalship, and to dissensions among the republicans. At length Garibaldi applied for a furlough. He was weary with six years of continuous exertion ; he was anxious for news of his parents and country; and, above all, it behooved him to provide a better home than a tent or a saddle for his wife and family, as Anita had borne him two sons. We find him, therefore, some time in the year 1841, toiling towards Montevideo, accompanied by wife and babes, a few cow-boys, and a drove of nine hundred cattle, from which he hoped to realize a little fortune. It was a fifty days’ journey, and he reached the city with but a few score hides, his beasts having died or straggled away along the route. For a time he harnessed himself to a peaceful employment; he taught mathematics — of the elementary grade, we may presume — in a private school kept by an Italian, and earned what he could besides as commission broker.

Repose may have been grateful to him at first, but he could not long endure the routine of school-teaching and business, and when the call to action came he quickly obeyed it. The republic of Uruguay was then involved in one of those internecine wrangles which have hitherto made up the history of South American States. As usual, the question was, Who shall be tyrant ? and the contestants were Ribera and Ouribes. The partisans of the former were victorious. Ouribes and his party, being driven out, fled to Buenos Ayres. There a similar fight was raging between Rosas, chief of the Unitarian, and Lavalle, chief of the Federal, faction. Rosas ousted his rival, welcomed Ouribes and the expelled Montevideans, and asked nothing better than to take revenge upon Montevideo, where the Unitarians had found an asylum. Moreover, the republic of Uruguay, lying on the left bank of the La Plata, was the commercial and political competitor of Buenos Ayres, lying on the right shore of the river. Here was a double incentive to war, and war ensued.

The issues being thus defined, Garibaldi could not rest, quietly teaching boys the multiplication table. News came from Rio Grande that an armistice had been agreed upon, with peace in prospect, so that he was released from his allegiance there, and he took up the cause of Ribera and the Montevideans very willingly, as he detested Rosas and Ouribes for their tyranny and cruelty. Three war-ships were fitted out, and it was planned that he should ascend the Parana to Corrientes, the capital of a province in league with Uruguay, and there begin operations against the enemy. To succeed, he must elude a hostile fleet under General Brown, the ablest naval officer in those parts. Unfortunately, the river was running low ; Garibaldi’s largest ship grounded, and he was forced to anchor his little squadron, and await Brown’s attack. The combat lasted two days (May 16—17, 1842). Garibaldi’s guns were of small calibre and short range, whereas Brown’s broadsides carried havoc. Some of the Montevideans lost heart and deserted ; one of the captains sneaked away in the night. The ammunition, even to the chain cables which had been fed to the cannon, was exhausted. There was no alternative but to surrender, or to blow up the ships and retreat up the river in the small boats. Garibaldi determined on the latter, and escaped with but a fragment of his original force.

Seven or eight months of fighting by land followed ; then, early in the next year, Garibaldi returned to Montevideo, where, on February 16, 1843, the enemy began a siege which lasted several years. The outlook for the Montevideans was gloomy. Their generals had been worsted in the field ; their ships had been destroyed, so that hostile menof-war fearlessly entered the harbor. Vidal, minister of war, having stolen all the money he could lay hold of in the treasury, had absconded to spend it in Europe. The chronic danger of internal revolution had always to be guarded against; and yet Montevideo, largely, it seems, owing to the resolution of a patriotic leader named Pacheco, and to the assistance of the foreign inhabitants, prepared to defend itself.

Of chief interest to us who are not deeply concerned in those South American broils is the fact that Garibaldi organized an “ Italian legion,” which gave proof, in many engagements and in long garrison duty, of courage and of capacity for discipline. This demonstration was important, because, for generations past, the Italian had been taunted in Europe with being a white-livered fellow, who had no soldierly quality.⁵ Despots felt sure of their possessions in Italy, believing that the Italians would never stand fire. Garibaldi proved at Montevideo that his countrymen, if properly drilled and ably captained, could and would fight; and his legion was not a whit behind that of the French in valor and serviceableness during the siege.

But while military operations in that far corner of the earth were fluctuating, like an intermittent fever, between spasms of fiery activity and intervals of enervation, events in Europe were hastening to a crisis. That time-section of eighteenth century despotism which diplomacy had intercalated into the nineteenth was well-nigh spent. The lion Demus, awaking from his sleep, discovered that he had been bound in meshes of pack-thread ; already he threatened to shake himself free. Thirty years of Metterniehism had all been of no avail. Gaggings, dungeons, executions, banishments, confiscations, — all of no avail. Triumphant absolutism had, indeed, succeeded in slaying the apostles of liberty, but the idea which had vivified those dead men perished not with them. Invisible, indestructible, like pollen carried and sown by the wind, it dropped silently into many hearts, and grew silently towards the time of harvest.

Great was the rejoicing among the Italians in Montevideo when the news came to them that the tyrannical Pope Gregory XVI. was dead; that on June 16, 1846, Giovanni Mastai Ferretti had been chosen to succeed him; that the new pontiff, who elected the title of Pius IX., was esteemed a man of liberal tendencies ; that he had granted an amnesty (a delusion, as it proved) to political offenders ; and that he had summoned to his council advisers in sympathy with the aspirations of patriotic Italians. At last were the dreams of the Neo-Guelfs to be realized, — Italy was to be freed from foreign oppressors, and united in a confederation under the presidency of the Pope ! That these expectations were never fulfilled we cannot charge wholly to the duplicity or cowardice of Pius. Enthusiasts projected out of themselves a meaning into his first acts which he had never intended, and when he found himself being swept along a course he had not laid out, he quickly turned hack, and was consistent in his mediaevalism.

To Garibaldi the news was as welcome as the return of the dove to Noah. Now, after fourteen years of exile, he could devote his strength to Italy. He had spilled his blood for the freedom of strangers; now he could fight, and die if need he, for his countrymen. In his eagerness, lie wrote and offered his services to Pius IX. as the redeemer of Italy. We have no intimation that the Pope or the Pope’s secretary deigned to reply to it. Garibaldi grew impatient, and decided to sail for home. A brigantine, propitiously named La Speranza, was hired and made ready. Sixty-three of the legion accompanied him, Anita and the children having been sent on an earlier packet. They stood out of the harbor of Montevideo, greatly to the regret of the Montevideans, on April 15, 1848, and after touching at Santa Pola, on the coast of Spain, — where they were thrown into feverish excitement by the tidings that Palermo, Milan, and Venice were in revolt, and that the revolution was general throughout Continental Europe, — they dropped anchor at Nice on the 23d of June. There the latest report of the situation was imparted to them.

Not even during the Napoleonic upheaval had modern Europe felt a convulsion like that of 1848, for government and order were as necessary to Napoleon as to his victims, and his revolution was the effort of one lion to devour foxes and wolves, of one preponderant tyranny to absorb many smaller tyrannies; but the catastrophe of 1848 seemed, to anxious observers, to endanger civilization itself. Society was dissolving into its elements. The manyheaded beast had risen, ubiquitous, terrific. Lop off one head, and others grew from the stem. What substitute could possibly be found in that chaos for the tottering system? Nothing seemed certain but anarchy.

That was the year when sovereigns were suddenly made acquainted with their lackeys’ staircases and the back doors of their palaces. The Pope escaped from Rome in the livery of a footman. Ferdinand, Emperor of Austria, fled twice from Vienna. Louis Philippe, the “ citizen king ” of the French, put on a disguise, and slipped away to England. Metternich, rudely interrupted in his diplomatic game of chess, barely escaped with his life to London. The Grown Prince of Prussia, subsequently Emperor of Germany, eluded tire angry Berliners, a trusty noble driving the carriage in which he escaped. There was a scampering of petty German princes, as of prairie-dogs at the sportsman’s approach. Nobility, whose ambition hitherto had been to display itself, was now wondrously fond of burrows. And just as the frightened upholders of absolutism went into hiding, the apostles of democracy emerged from prisons and exile.

Paper constitutions, grandiloquent manifestoes, patriotic resolutions, doctrinaire pamphlets, were whirled hither and thither as thick as autumn leaves. Every man who had a tongue spoke; speaking, so furious was the din, soon loudened into shouting. But the old régime was encamped in no Jericho, whose walls would tumble at mere sound. There must be deeds as well as words ; in truth, more action and less Babel had been wiser. Committees of national safety, workmen’s unions, civic guards, armies of the people, sprang into existence, and it is wonderful to note with what quickness officers and leaders were found to command them. Universities were turned into recruiting stations and barracks; students and professors became soldiers. There were heroic combats, excesses, reverses bravely borne. Gradually the fatal lack of centre and organization could not be concealed. Among the leaders there were disputes as to measures; then misunderstandings, jealousies, desertions. Each doctrinaire cared that his plan, rather than the general cause, should prevail. Each sect, each race, feared that it would lose should its rival take the lead. But the purpose of monarchy was everywhere the same, — to recover its footing; and the agents of monarchy, cautiously creeping out of their retreats, began to profit by the divisions among their enemies. Within a year the European revolt was crushed. Nevertheless its lessons abide. It taught that kings cannot be permanently abolished so long as a large majority of a nation require kingly government, and the proof that they require it is the fact that they submit to it; whence it follows that republicanism cannot conquer until a people he educated up to the capacity of governing themselves. It taught that without unity among the heads and obedience among the members no reform can succeed. It taught, finally, that no society which has once attained a certain level of civilization can exist in a state of anarchy; for when anarchy is reached, the opportunity of the strongest man, the tyrant, offers, and the process of reconstruction from the basis of absolutism begins.

Concerning the affairs of Italy at the end of June, 1848, Garibaldi was soon enlightened. The revolutionary agitation, breaking out in Sicily at the beginning of the year, had swept up the peninsula. The petty rulers, thinking to save their thrones, at first made concessions, granting constitutions to appease the popular clamor, and to prevent the establishment of republics. National enthusiasm, seeking a common foe, pitched upon Austria, and demanded that Lombardy and Venetia should be liberated. Charles Albert, King of Piedmont, renouncing his previous despotic policy, offered himself as the champion of the Italian cause, and declared war on Austria. The King of Naples and the Grand Duke of Tuscany promised to send troops, and the Pope blessed the undertaking, — with what sincerity we can surmise, when we reflect that Ferdinand and Leopold, as well as the papacy, had hitherto depended upon Austrian support for their very existence. At the outset the national cause prospered. The Piedmontese won a victory at Goito, April 8 ; Radetzky, the Austrian general, abandoned Lombardy, and retreated to the Quadrilateral.⁶ The Milanese and Venetians were eager to conclude their annexation to Piedmont. The rebellion in Hungary, thus far successful, made it probable that all the Austrian forces would be withdrawn from Italy to save the empire at home, and, once departed, their return would be impossible. Full of hope gleamed the prospect to the Italians in that month of June; but the hope was illusive, merely a surface shimmer. Already, those who looked deeper, saw defeat preparing. Among the Italians themselves were two enemies more formidable than Radetzky. The rulers who had been frightened into posing as friends of the national cause watched most enviously the successes of Charles Albert, — successes which, if maintained, would make of Piedmont the leading state in Italy, with a king pledged to a liberal policy forever incompatible with Bourbon methods. So their coöperation, insincere and compulsory at the first, was now tacitly renounced. More disastrous still was the action of the Mazzinians, who insisted that unless the revolution triumphed in a republic, they would give it no sanction. They would tread no middle road. To fight for Charles Albert was to play into the hands of a dynasty, to substitute one monarchy for another. So they bestirred themselves to foment a revolution within a revolution, and to proclaim republics in the just liberated and in the wavering provinces. They urged Garibaldi to join them. “ Be true to your republican principles,” they pleaded; “ never help to aggrandize a monarchy.” “There is fighting for Italy on the Mincio,” he replied. “ My place is there.” This decision was the most important in Garibaldi’s career. It separated him from the republican sectaries with whom he was allied in theory, and made him the most powerful popular instrument in the emancipation of his country; whilst their efforts proved abortive, and frequently harmful. Common sense and visionariness were mingled in his nature : common sense dictated this resolve, and kept his eyes clear to see where his patriotism could be applied for the largest practical good. Italy must he liberated ; then, and not till then, would it be proper to discuss theories of government.

Therefore, within a few days after his landing at Nice, Garibaldi appeared at Roverbella, the Piedmontese headquarters, and offered his own and his comrades’ services to Charles Albert, — the very king who had sentenced him to death fourteen years before. On the part of the king there was hesitation, coolness. He was naturally distrustful of republicans, and here was a notorious republican. He deemed it indispensable that the European Powers should not confound his mission with the lawless schemes of political incendiaries. Perhaps he was skeptical of the efficiency of this red-shirted soldier-of-fortune and a few score companions. Perhaps he was already chilled by a presentiment of defeat. In his temperament, moreover, lurked a fatal indecision; at critical moments he could never take a downright resolve and defend it without reconsideration. He was always too late: destiny had barred the door, whilst he stood debating whether to enter. Personally brave (the house of Savoy has had no coward on its roll) and sincerely patriotic, Charles Albert failed through this constitutional defect. He is one of those pathetic unfortunates who deserve our sympathy rather than our censure.

This reception exasperated Garibaldi. He felt contempt for the wavering monarch, scorn for petty excuses and official temporizing. To have come seven thousand miles over sea with one controlling motive in your heart, to ask no more than permission to fight in the ranks of the leader who had made your cause his cause, and then to be eyed with suspicion, to be put off and rebuffed, — surely here was reason for indignation ! Unable to effect aught with the king, Garibaldi proceeded to Milan, where the provisional government charged him with the organization of a corps of volunteers, composed for the most part, he says, of military dregs. They marched to Bergamo, but an order soon summoned them back to Milan, which Radetzky was about to recapture. At Monza, they learned that Milan had succumbed, that the Austrians were once more masters of Lombardy, and that Charles Albert had retreated with his army beyond the Piedmontese frontiers. Garibaldi’s legion of three thousand dwindled rapidly, although he endeavored to keep alive an irregular warfare along the shores of Lake Como. The deserters took refuge in Switzerland, and, realizing that the odds were too great, lie withdrew, full of chagrin and sick with fever, to Genoa.

After the discomfiture of the Lombards, the reactionaries in other parts of Italy grew bolder; the revolutionists, on their side, instead of losing heart, grew more violent. Garibaldi’s health being Somewhat repaired, his energy returned. We hear of him at Florence, where Guerrazzi, the provisional dictator, gave him but a half-hearted welcome ; thence, with his faithful few, he crossed the Apennines, in the inclement autumn weather, and reached Bologna, with the design of proceeding to Venice, where Manin was bravely resisting the besieging Austrians. Hungry for action, Garibaldi was nevertheless thwarted by circumstances, and by his natural inability to work harmoniously with other leaders. He knew not when to compromise, or when to accept the expedient instead of the larger but unrealizable ideal. So he tarried and fretted, until Italy was startled by the news that Pellegrino Rossi, the Pope’s liberal minister, had been assassinated (November 15, 1848), and that Pius himself had fled to Gaeta, leaving Rome open to the machinations of the revolutionists. Garibaldi hastened thither. Again he found affairs conducted far otherwise than he hoped. Among the managers of the Roman government, “ the same spirit was dominant,” he says, “ which had ruled Milan, and was ruling Florence. Italy did not need soldiers, but orators and bargainers, of whom could be said what AIfieri said of aristocrats, — ‘ now haughty, now cringing, always infamous ’ ; and of these orators especially, our poor country had never a dearth. Despotism had for a moment given up the reins of the commonweal to speechifiers, to sing to the people and put it to sleep, with the almost certainty that these parrots would smooth the way for the tremendous reaction which was preparing throughout the peninsula.”

Early in February, 1849, the republic was formally proclaimed. Mazzini, Saffi, and Armellini were chosen triumvirs. As the spring wore on. it was evident that the Italian cause was tottering. The Piedmontese army suffered utter defeat at Novara (March 23). Charles Albert abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel, and died in Portugal, broken-hearted, a few months later. The new king had to accept peace on the Austrians’ terms. Only at Venice, Florence, and Rome the fires of patriotism still burnt, isolated, and hourly menaced by the rising flood of reaction.

The Romans nevertheless defied destruction. Succor from their countrymen could not be expected. The thought that the European Powers might interfere in their behalf could not be seriously entertained : those Powers were celebrating the downfall of the revolution at home, — how should they foster it abroad ? And within the city, although there was determination, there was not harmony. Garibaldi complained that the triumvirs were theorists, whereas the emergency called for practical, energetic men. He complained that the command of the army was divided between himself and an incompetent old general named Rosselli. There were differences between them, and when he requested to be made dictator and bear the sole responsibility, Mazzini was scandalized. Meanwhile, the Neapolitan king was marching up from the south, and a French army, dispatched by Louis Napoleon, had landed at Givita Vecchia, with no hostile intent, it was pretended. Garibaldi led his troops out of Rome, and checked the Neapolitans at Palestrina and Velletri ; but he had not the means, even if the authority had been granted him, to follow up his advantage. He was called hack to defend the city itself, which the French, having thrown off their mask of friendliness, were about to invest. Thenceforward, during the four weeks of the siege, Garibaldi acted as general-in-chief, and made a gallant defense. Inch by inch, however, Oudinot’s soldiers, superior in all things save valor, gained on the Romans, who retreated doggedly from wall to wall and from house to house, with no prospect beyond extermination or surrender. To conquer was impossible. Ammunition failed ; famine threatened. Then Garibaldi proposed that the garrison should march out of Rome, and entrench itself in some stronghold of the Apennines, where resistance might he prolonged indefinitely. But Mazzini judged that this could not succeed, and on June 30 the Assembly voted to surrender. Four days later the French took possession of the city, but Garibaldi was not among their prisoners. He, refusing the offer of the United States Minister, Cass, to avail himself of the shelter of an American man-of-war then anchored at Civita Vecchia, marched out of the Porta San Giovanni on the afternoon of July 2, accompanied by nearly four thousand men.

Garibaldi’s narrative of his retreat is the most remarkable passage in his Memoirs, scarcely to he matched, so far as I know, in any other autobiography whatsoever. He speaks simply, conscious that no rhetoric could heighten the effect produced by a mere statement of the tragic episode. Only occasionally, a flash of sarcasm, a cry of indignation. reveal the anguish of the man.

His wife, Anita, would not he parted from him. He urged upon her the certain perils and fatigues, and with all the more earnestness tried to dissuade her from them, as she was soon to bear a child. But his “ Brazilian Amazon ” feared nothing ; she would endure everything except separation from him. Finding entreaties vain, he reluctantly acquiesced. Her hair was cut short, she put on man’s clothes, bestrode a horse, and the retreat began. On the morning of July 3, when the French were entering Rome, the Garibaldian remnant had crossed the Campagna and reached Tivoli. Among the mountains Garibaldi had hoped to stir up the peasantry; he soon discovered that they were dull and timorous, not at all eager for an insurrection. His own followers, too, slipped away, under the cover of each night. He was gladdened, at Terni, by the accession of Colonel Forbes, an Englishman, with a few companies of disciplined troops. On they wound over the Apennines, every stage bringing them nearer to the Austrians, who were masters of the Adriatic slope. Now and then a skirmish ensued, but generally the Garibaldians evaded attack, occupying every night a lofty position, whence they passed to another on the morrow. The number of deserters increased, causing pain to Garibaldi, not only by this evidence of weakness, but also by the excesses they committed as they disbanded through the country, — excesses which brought disrepute to his name. He had resolved to push his way to the coast, and embark for Venice, where Manin still held out; but when he reached the tiny crag-nested republic of San Marino, sitting down on the step of a church outside the town, he wrote the following order : “ Soldiers, I release you from the duty of accompanying me. Return to your homes, but remember that Italy must not remain in servitude and in shame.” Garibaldi refused to make overtures to the Austrians ; so it was agreed with the authorities of San Marino that those of his companions who laid down their arms within the territory of that neutral state might go their way unmolested. Many availed themselves of this offer, but a devoted few, seeing that their chief had not flinched in his determination to reach Venice, would not desert him. He made a last effort to persuade Anita to stay in San Marino, where she could be cared for during her confinement; but she too was firm.

The little band, thanks to celerity, caution, and wise guidance, fell upon the small sea-board town of Cesenatico about midnight. They overpowered the guards at the gate, and ordered the municipal officers to provide boats immediately. But a heavy wind, blowing in shore, caused so long a delay that it was broad daylight ere they finally embarked, — thirteen boat-loads, ill supplied with food and water. The wind now favored them, and they sailed all day along the low coast of the Po delta. The next night was very clear ; a full moon shone. Just as they rounded the point of Goro, they discovered the Austrian squadron lying in wait there, and were discovered by them. Garibaldi steered his boat between the enemy and the shore, hoping to escape in the shadow of the land; but his companions, alarmed by the cannonade of the men-of-war, attempted to retreat, and he followed, unwilling to abandon them. When dawn broke, the fugitives found themselves entrapped in the little bight of Goro. The Austrians lowered their launches. Nine of the boats were captured ; the other four succeeded in reaching the shore. Anita, whose natural sufferings had been increased by fatigue, excitement, and lack of water, was already in a dying condition, and had to be lifted from the boat. The Austrian marines would be upon the fugitives in a few moments; yet, should they strike inland, they must inevitably fall into the clutches of the Austrian and papal soldiers stationed in that neighborhood, and put on the alert by the cannonade. Still, the latter alternative must be hazarded. Garibaldi bade his friends disperse through the fields, in the hope that some, at least, might escape capture.⁷ He himself, with the help of Leggiero, a comrade who refused to leave him, moved Anita into an apricot orchard, at a little distance from the beach. Leggiero then went forward to reconnoitre, and presently returned with Colonel Bonnet, one of the legion who had fought at Rome, and had retired to this locality — it being his home — to be cured of a wound. He had heard the firing, and suspected its cause. A lucky fortune led him to Garibaldi in this emergency, for Bonnet knew the country and the people. They conveyed Anita to a peasant s hut, where water was procured for her. “ Thence we passed to a house belonging to Bonnet’s sister.” (I conclude the account of this episode in Garibaldi’s own words.) “ From there we traversed part of the valli of Comacchio, and approached La Mandriola, where a doctor was to he had. We reached La Mandriola, and Anita was lying on a mattress in the wagon which had brought her. I said then to Dr. Zannini, just arrived at that instant, ‘See you save this woman.’ The doctor to me, ‘ Let us try to remove her to a bed.’ We four then took each a corner of the mattress, and transported her to a bed in one of the rooms of the house, at the top of the little staircase. In placing my wife on the bed, I thought I discovered the expression of death in her face. I felt for her pulse: it was not beating.”

Garibaldi could not linger over the dead body of his wife. His presence would compromise the dwellers in the house, and make his own capture sure. To the humanity of those strangers he commended Anita’s burial, and set forth, heavy-hearted, with Leggiero. A guide conducted them to the village of Sant’ Alberto, where they were concealed in the house of a poor tailor. From the window of this refuge Garibaldi could see the Austrian soldiers pass to and fro : but there, and throughout the thirty-seven days of his flight through a country full of the enemies’ soldiers and spies, by the devotion and adroitness of friends whom he had never seen before, but who were proud to risk their lives in his behalf, he was loyally preserved. He was passed on from protector to protector, who furnished guides when possible, and preconcerted with trusty confederates as to the hiding-place which should harbor him at each advance. They led him through unfrequented lanes and over desolate mountain-paths ; they lighted beacons to warn against peril; they outwitted at every point the vigilance of his pursuers. Once, he and Leggiero hid for several days in the great pine forest near Ravenna, sometimes in the cabin of a woodsman, sometimes in a thicket; and it happened that when they were in the latter, some Austrian soldiers, part of a regiment detailed to beat the forest, passed within a few rods. Slowly but safely, however, the refugees progressed, being smuggled, like contraband goods, by night from Ravenna to Forlì, and from Forli across the frontiers of Tuscany ; then they boldly followed the high-road as far as Prato, within sight of Florence, which they avoided by a detour; and so on into the Maremma, to the shore of the Tyrrhene Sea. They embarked in a fishing-boat on the Gulf of Sterbino, near Follonica, and sailed to Elba for provisions. Then they coasted Tuscany, and as they passed Leghorn Garibaldi was tempted to seek an asylum on an English ship; but the desire of seeing his children prevailed, and they kept on to Chiavari, where they landed and found friends. General La Marmora, hearing of their arrival, caused them to be brought to Genoa, where they were temporarily held under restraint in the ducal palace. The Piedmontese government, not yet recovered from the disaster of Novara, could not suffer so conspicuous a revolutionist as Garibaldi to remain in the kingdom, although it granted a pension to him. He was allowed one day for a trip to Nice, where he bade farewell to his children ; and was then requested to choose a place of exile. He chose Tunis, but the Bey, instigated by the French, declined to receive him. Then he was taken to the island of Maddalena, off Sardinia, whence, after twenty days’ sojourn, lie was removed, on the groundless suspicion of plotting an insurrection. A man-of-war conveyed him to Gibraltar. There, the Piedmontese were indeed rid of him ; but even there the outcast might not stay. The English governor bade him depart within six days. He crossed the straits, and found a restingplace at Tangier.

Such was the treatment which civilized Europe, in the very meridian of the nineteenth century, dealt to Garibaldi, and to thousands like him, —men of integrity, of supreme disinterestedness, often highly intelligent and refined. Their crime was to have fought to free their country from foreign tyrants ; to have asserted that men have an inalienable right to liberty ; that the jurisdiction over the lives of a people shall not be wielded by an irresponsible autocrat. To avow these principles was criminal; nay, worse than criminal, for the common assassin was not so hounded and persecuted as were these witnesses to justice. Not merely the tyrant of their town and province was implacably aroused, but all the tyrants of Continental Europe were leagued against them. When the interdict had been fulminated against one of these offenders, he had nothing to hope from justice or mercy : if caught, he was shot, or thrust into some loathsome dungeon ; ⁸ if he escaped, his goods were confiscated, his family beggared and tortured, and whosoever dared to befriend him was liable to the same punishment. We shudder at the persecution of the early Christians by Decius and Diocletian ; horrible indeed was their barbarity ; yet those were martyrdoms inflicted by pagan emperors upon victims of another religion, at a time when men were not moved by the sight of physical agony. The persecutors of this century, on the contrary, have been avowed Christians, and their victims were Christians.

For a time, then, Europe was rid of this incubus, Garibaldi; and the reprobate himself, during the space of half a year, impenitent hut sad, fretted in his African exile. A few loyal companions were not wanting to him, even on the verge of the Sahara. Twice a week they solaced themselves with the chase ; they sailed in a little boat lent by a friend; they fished in the Mediterranean ; they talked over the past, and sent guesses and hopes into the future. Admirers in Italy having started a subscription to buy a merchant-ship, which Garibaldi should command, he went to New York, in June, 1850, by way of Liverpool, to effect the purchase of the vessel. But the project failed, through lack of subscribers ; only six thousand dollars had been raised. ‘‘But what vessel could one buy in America with thirty thousand lire ? ” he asks. “ A little coasting-craft; hut as I was not an American citizen, I should have been obliged to take a captain of that nation, and it did not suit. At last something had to be done. A worthy friend of mine, Antonio Meucci, a Florentine, decides to set up a factory of candles, and asks me to help in his establishment. No sooner said than done. . . . I bent myself to that toil, on the terms of doing as much as I could. I worked for some months with Meucci, who did not treat me like any ordinary employee, but like one of the family, and with much kindliness. One day, however, sick of making candles, and urged on perhaps by inborn and habitual restlessness, I went out with the determination of changing my occupation. I remembered that I had been a sailor. I knew a few words of English, and betook myself to the shore of the island [Staten], where I saw some coasting-barks being loaded and unloaded. I reached the first, and asked to be engaged as sailor. Those whom I saw on the vessel hardly heeded me, and went on with their work. Approaching a second ship, I made the same request, and had the same response. At length I passed to a third, where they were busy unloading, and I asked if they would let me help : for reply they said they did n’t need help. ‘ But I do not ask for pay,’ I insisted. No answer. ‘ I want to work to shake off the cold ’ (there was actually snow). Still less. I was mortified. I returned in thought to those times when I had the honor to command the squadron of Montevideo, not to speak of the valiant and immortal army. What booted all that ? They did not want me ! I swallowed my mortification at last, and went back to my tallow.”

In this page from the Odyssey of the Italian Ulysses we have a glimpse of his life at Clifton, Staten Island. Behold the hero of Montevideo and Rome trying out grease in a candle-factory, without a Calypso to beguile his banishment, or a Penelope to welcome him home ! In the course of a year, however, his circumstances brightened somewhat, and he sailed for Central America — having resumed his old alias, Giuseppe Pane — with a friend engaged in a commercial speculation. In Nicaragua Garibaldi caught the Chagres fever, and well-nigh succumbed under it. Then he wandered from port to port along the western coast of South America. A chance offering, he captained a vessel with a cargo of guano from Lima to Canton, and returned with other freight to Lima. Finally, his adventures in the southern hemisphere were ended. He brought a ship, laden with copper from Chile and wool from Peru, round Cape Horn to Boston. Then he took a cargo of flour and grain from Baltimore to London, and subsequently a cargo of coals from Newcastle to Genoa. It was in May, 1854, after nearly five years of exile, that he saw his native land again. The succeeding five years he dismisses in two lines. “ I passed them,” he says, " partly in sailing, and partly in cultivating a little farm bought by me on the island of Caprera.”

Here the first period of Garibaldi’s career properly closes, — a period crowded with adventures, wanderings, strange vicissitudes, startling exploits, thwarted hopes. The efforts of thirty years seemed to have accomplished nothing; at fifty he beheld Italy still enslaved, and the prospect of her independence still beyond reach. But his career, outwardly unsuccessful, had not been wasted. It had demonstrated that he had a power over popular enthusiasm which, if wisely directed, might produce tremendous results. Hitherto, his work had been that of a free-lance, gallantly struggling with unorganized forces against unequal odds. The future revealed what his energy and magnetism could achieve, when they became part of a great, organized movement, and were no longer ineffective from their very isolation.

William R. Thayer.