Karl Marx 
Interesting from Sicily- 
Garibaldi's Quarrel with La Farina— 
A Letter from Garibaldi 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr.6018, 8. August 1860 

Interesting from Sicily- 
Garibaldi's Quarrel with La Farina— 
A Letter from Garibaldi. 

Correspondence of The N.Y. Tribune. 
London, July 23, 1860. 

According to a telegram received to-day from Palermo, Col. Medici's im- 
pending attack on Milazzo had decided the King of Naples to give orders 
for the complete evacuation of Sicily by the Neapolitan army, and their 
withdrawal to his continental dorriinions. Although this telegram stands in 
need of confirmation, it seems beyond dispute that Garibaldi's cause is 
working on, despite the disease his troops suffer from, and the diplomatic 
intrigues his Government is pestered with. 

Garibaldi's open breach with the Cavour party, viz: the expulsion from 
Sicily of La Farina, the notorious marplot, and of Signors Griscelh and Totti, 
Corsicans by birth, and Bonapartist police agents by profession, has given 
rise to very contradictory comments on the part of the European press. A 
private letter of Garibaldi's to a London friend, which has been com- 
municated to me with the permission to state its principal contents in The 
Tribune, will leave no doubt as to the real bearing of the case. Garibaldi's 
letter is of a date anterior to his decree of the 7th inst., by which the three 
aforesaid plotters 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 one word, between 
Garibaldi and Cavour. The latter, in secret understanding with Louis Bona- 

Interesting from Sicily—Garibaldi's Quarrel with La Faina—A Letter from Garibaldi 

parte, whom Garibaldi stigmatizes as "cet homme faux" (that false man), 
and with whom he foresees "the necessity of measuring his sword some fine 
morning"—Cavour, then, had determined upon annexing, piece-meal, such 
slices of Italian territory as Garibaldi's sword might cut out, or as popular 
risings might sever from their old allegiance. This process of piece-meal 
annexation to Piedmont was to be accompanied by a simultaneous process 
of "compensation" for the second Empire. As Savoy and Nice had to be paid 
for Lombardy and the Duchies, so Sardinia and Genoa were to pay for Sicily ; 
every new act of separate annexation calling for a new separate diplomatic 

1 o transaction with the protector of Piedmont. A second dismemberment to the 

benefit of France, quite apart from the outrage on the integrity and inde- 
pendence of Italy which it involved, would at once have put an extinguisher 
on the patriotic movements at Naples and Rome. The conviction spreading 
that to coalesce under Piedmontese auspices, Italy must grow less and less, 
would have enabled Bonaparte to maintain at Naples and Rome separate 
governments, independent in name, but for all practical purposes, French 
vassalages. Hence Garibaldi thought it his principal task to cut off allpretext 
for French diplomatic interference, but, as he understood, this could only 
be done by preserving to the movement its pure popular character, and 
divesting it of all appearance of connection with mere schemes of dynastic 
aggrandizement. Sicily, Naples, and Rome once liberated, themoment would 
have come for merging them into the kingdom of Victor Emanuel, if the latter 
would take upon himself to keep them, and defend them, not only from 
Austria, the enemy in front, but also from France, the enemy in the rear. 
Relying, perhaps, somewhat too much on the good will of the English 
Government, and the necessities of Louis Bonaparte's situation, Garibaldi 
presumes that so long as he does not annex to Piedmont any territory, and 
exclusively relies for the liberation of Italy upon Italian arms, Louis Bona- 
parte will not dare to interfere in open violation of the pretexts upon which 
he commenced the Italian crusade. However that may be, this much is 
sure—that Garibaldi's plan, whether successful or not, is the only one that, 
under present circumstances, holds out any chance of rescuing Italy, not only 
from its old tyrants and divisions, but also from the clutches of the new 
French protectorate. And to baffle this plan was the special errand upon 
which Cavour had dispatched La Farina to Sicily, supported by the two 
Corsican brothers. 

La Farina is a native of Sicily, where, in 1848, he distinguished himself 
among the Revolutionists by his hatred against the Republican party and his 
intrigues with the Piedmontese doctrinaires rather than by real energy or 
memorable exploits. After the failure of the Sicilian revolution and during 
his stay at Turin, he published a voluminous history of Italy, in which he did 

Kar Marx 

his best to exalt the Savoy dynasty, and to slander Mazzini. With soul and 
body bound to Cavour, he imbued the "National Association for Italian 
unity" with a Bonapartist spirit; and having become its chairman, handled 
it as an instrument not for furthering but for impeding all attempts at inde- 
pendent national action. It was quite in keeping with these antecedents that, 
when the first rumor got afloat of Garibaldi's intended expedition to Sicily, 
La Farina ridiculed and reviled the very idea of such an expedition. When, 
nevertheless, immediate steps were taken in preparation of the bold ad- 
venture, La Farina put in movement all the resources of "National Associ- 
ation" with a view to obstruct it. When his opposition had failed in dis- 
couraging the general and his men, and when at last the expedition sailed, 
La Farina, with cynical sneers, indulged in forebodings of the most sinister 
kind, making himself bold to predict the immediate and total failure of the 
enterprise. So soon, however, as Garibaldi had taken Palermo and pro- 
claimed himself Dictator, La Farina rushed to join him, being provided with 
a commission from Victor Emanuel, or rather from Cavour, which gave him 
power to assume the command of the island in the name of the King, directly 
after the annexation had been voted. Being, as he himself admits, despite 
his ill-omened antecedents, at first most courteously received by Garibaldi, 
he at once began to assume the airs of the master, to intrigue against the 
Ministry of Crispi, conspire with the French police agents, rally around 
himself the aristocratic liberals eager to close the revolution by a vote of 
separate annexation, and propose, instead of the necessary steps for the 
expulsion of the Neapolitans from Sicily, plans for the expulsion from the 
public administration of the Mazzinians, and other men not to be relied on 
by his master, Cavour. 

Crispi, with the undermining of whose Ministry La Farina opened his 
intrigues, had for a long time been an exile in London, where he was counted 
among Mazzini's friends, and made the deliverance of Sicily the all-absorbing 
subject of his exertions. In the Spring of 1859 he went under a Wallachian 
name and character to Sicily at great personal risk, visited every great town 
there, and planned an insurrection for the month of October. The events of 
the Autumn delayed the insurrection, first tül November, and then till the 
present year. In the mean time Crispi applied to Garibaldi, who, while re- 
fusing to excite an insurrection, gave the promise to aid it after it had once 
broken out and so far consolidated itself as to prove what were the real 
feelings of the Sicilians. During the expedition Crispi, with his wife, the only 
woman of the expedition, accompanied Garibaldi and fought in every action, 
his wife superintending the attendance on the sick and wounded. It was this 
man whom Signor La Farina wanted first to throw overboard, with the secret 
hope, of course, of flinging the Dictator after him. Garibaldi, out of con- 

Interesting from Sicily—Garibaldi's Quarrel with La Fanna—A Letter from Garibaldi 

sideration for Victor Emanuel, and under the high pressure of the aristocratic 
Liberals, consented, although under protest, to form a new Ministry and 
dismiss Crispi, whom he, however, retained as a personal counselor and 
friend. But Garibaldi had hardly made this sacrifice when he became aware 
that the dismissal of the Crispi Ministry had only been insisted upon in order 
to quarter upon him a Cabinet which, in all but name, was not his, but La 
Farina's or Cavour's Cabinet, and which, encouraged by the presence of La 
Farina, and relying upon Cavour's protection, would in a very short time 
counteract his whole plan of liberation, and turn all their influence through- 
out the country against the Nizzardist intruder, as Garibaldi was already 
nicknamed. It was then that he saved his own cause, not less than that of 
Sicily and Italy, by the expulsion of La Farina with the two Corsican broth- 
ers, the acceptance of the resignation of La Farina's ministerial nominees, 
and the appointment of a patriotic Ministry, among whom we may name 
Signor Mario.