From the English.

[“New-York Daily Tribune,” No. 6018, August 8, 1860]

London, July 23, 1860

According to a telegram received today from Palermo, Colonel Medici’s impending attack on Milazzo has induced the King of Naples to order the complete evacuation of Sicily by the Neapolitan army and its withdrawal to his mainland territories. Although this telegram still requires confirmation, Garibaldi’s cause seems unquestionably to be advancing, despite the sickness from which his troops are suffering and the diplomatic intrigues besetting his government.

Garibaldi’s open breach with the party of Cavour—namely, the expulsion from Sicily of the notorious intriguer La Farina and of Signori Griscelli and Totti, Corsicans by birth and Bonapartist police agents by profession—has given the European press occasion for the most contradictory comments. A personal letter from Garibaldi to a London friend, which has been transmitted to me with permission to set forth its principal contents in the Tribune, will leave no doubt as to the true state of affairs. Garibaldi’s letter bears an earlier date than his order of the 7th of this month, by which the three conspirators mentioned above were summarily removed from the island; but it fully explains the points at issue between the General and the Minister—between the popular dictator and the dynastic Grand Vizier; in a word, between Garibaldi and Cavour. The latter, in secret understanding with Louis Bonaparte, whom Garibaldi brands as “cet homme faux” (that false man), foreseeing the necessity of having “to cross swords with him one fine day”—Cavour, then, had resolved to annex piece by piece those parts of Italian territory which Garibaldi’s sword would carve out or which popular uprisings would free from their old dependence. This process of piecemeal annexation to Piedmont was to be accompanied by a simultaneous process of “compensation” to the Second Empire. Just as Savoy and Nice had to be paid for Lombardy and the Duchies, so Sardinia and Genoa are to be paid for Sicily; each new separate act of annexation gives rise to a new separate diplomatic transaction with the protector of Piedmont, Napoleon III. A second dismemberment in favour of France would, quite apart from the violation of the integrity and independence of Italy which it entails, immediately stifle the patriotic movements in Naples and Rome. The conviction is spreading that Italy must grow smaller and smaller in order to be united under Piedmontese supremacy and to enable Bonaparte to maintain in Naples and Rome separatist governments nominally independent, but in reality French vassals. Garibaldi therefore regarded it as his principal task to remove the pretext for French diplomatic interference; but this, in his view, could only be achieved by preserving the purely popular character of the movement and by stripping it of any mere semblance of connection with plans of dynastic aggrandisement. Once Sicily, Naples, and Rome were freed, the moment would have arrived to incorporate them into the kingdom of Victor Emmanuel, provided the latter undertook to hold and defend them, not only against Austria, the enemy in front, but also against France, the enemy in the rear. Garibaldi, who is perhaps over-reliant on the goodwill of the English Government and the predicament of Louis Bonaparte, assumes that, so long as he incorporates no territory into Piedmont and relies exclusively on Italian arms for the liberation of Italy, Louis Bonaparte will not venture to intervene in open violation of the principle under which he began the Italian crusade. Be that as it may, one thing is certain: Garibaldi’s plan, whether successful or not, is the only one which, under present circumstances, offers any prospect of freeing Italy not only from her old tyrants and from fragmentation, but also from the clutches of the new French protectorate. To thwart this plan was the special mission of Cavour, with which he had sent La Farina, supported by the two Corsican brothers, to Sicily.

La Farina is a native of Sicily, where, in 1848, he distinguished himself among the revolutionaries more by his hatred of the republican party and his intrigues with the Piedmontese doctrinaires than by real energy or outstanding heroic deeds. After the failure of the Sicilian revolution, and during his stay in Turin, he published a voluminous history of Italy, in which he did his best to glorify the Savoy dynasty and to vilify Mazzini. Body and soul pledged to Cavour, he filled the National Association for the Unity of Italy with Bonapartist spirit and, after becoming its president, used it as an instrument not to promote, but to hinder, all attempts at independent national action. When the first rumour of Garibaldi’s projected expedition to Sicily began to circulate, La Farina, perfectly in keeping with his previous activity, mocked and vilified the very idea of such an expedition. When, nevertheless, direct measures were taken to prepare the bold undertaking, La Farina set in motion all the resources of the National Association in order to prevent it. When, despite his opposition, he did not succeed in discouraging the General and his soldiers, and the expedition finally set out, La Farina, with a cynical grin, made predictions of the most ominous kind and had the audacity to prophesy the immediate and complete failure of the enterprise. No sooner, however, had Garibaldi taken Palermo and proclaimed himself Dictator, than La Farina hastened to join him, bearing powers from Victor Emmanuel, or rather from Cavour, to assume, in the King’s name, the command of the island as soon as the vote for annexation had been taken. Received by Garibaldi at first with the greatest politeness, despite his evil activity, as he himself admits, La Farina immediately began to assume the air of a master, to intrigue against the Crispi ministry, to conspire with the French police agents, to rally around himself the aristocratic Liberals who were burning to end the revolution by a vote for separate annexation, and, instead of the measures necessary to drive the Neapolitans from Sicily, to propose plans for expelling the followers of Mazzini and other men whom his lord and master Cavour distrusted from the public administration.

Crispi, whose ministry it was that La Farina’s intrigues first sought to undermine, had long lived in exile in London, where he numbered among Mazzini’s friends. He made the liberation of Sicily his aim, to which he devoted all his energies. At great personal risk, in the spring of 1859, he went to Sicily under a Wallachian name and title, visited every larger town there, and prepared an insurrection for the month of October. The autumn events delayed the uprising, first until November, then until this year. In the meantime, Crispi approached Garibaldi, who declined to ignite an uprising, but gave his promise to support it once it had broken out and consolidated itself to such an extent as to show the real sentiment of the Sicilians. Together with his wife, the only woman in the enterprise, Crispi accompanied Garibaldi during the expedition and took part in all the fighting, while his wife superintended the care of the sick and wounded; it was this man, then, whom Signor La Farina wished to throw overboard first, naturally with the secret hope of afterwards overthrowing the Dictator. Out of regard for Victor Emmanuel, and under strong pressure from the aristocratic Liberals, Garibaldi consented, albeit under protest, to form a new ministry and to dismiss Crispi, whom, however, he retained as a personal adviser and friend. Garibaldi, however, had scarcely made this sacrifice when he became aware that the dismissal of the Crispi ministry had been urged upon him only in order to hand him a cabinet which in everything but name was not his cabinet, but that of La Farina or Cavour, and which, emboldened by La Farina’s presence and counting on Cavour’s protection, would in a very short time counteract his whole plan of liberation and everywhere in the country employ all its influence against the Nice interloper, as Garibaldi was already being called. Consequently, by expelling La Farina and the Corsican brothers, by accepting the resignation of the ministry designated by La Farina, and by appointing a patriotic ministry, from which we may name Signor Mario, Garibaldi saved both his own cause and that of Sicily and Italy.