Historical voices

If I had followed their advice, I should not have crossed the Straits and restored seven millions of men to Italy.

People of Palermo, with whom I have shared fatigues, perils and glory, I am once more among you.

Can a people appreciate and derive much benefit from free institutions so long as they permit their senses to be cheated by such a palpable swindle as this?

It is to be hoped that he will, as soon as may be, commence the work of raising the Neapolitan people out of some of the absurd superstitions which have always kept them in ignorance, and made them the serfs of juggling priests.

I looked at him as if expecting to find that he was turned into a brute beast, for it was a den for a wild animal, not a chamber for a Christian man, in a country teeming with Christ's ministers, and where the holy Apostolic Catholic…

Nor is this to be wondered at, when ignorance was rewarded and learning discouraged by those twins of darkness, the sovereign and the clergy, and the only hopes of the Bourbons and the Vatican depend upon brutalizing the national mind.

It is clear that the intellect of the country has for years been out of it, or in seclusion, or in imprisonment.

The Neapolitans now reason and talk like men, and there is a degree of self-restraint about them which is in the highest degree creditable after the sufferings to which they have been so long exposed.

No; all this has passed away, and I meet erect, independent men.

In their very attitude, there is an air of self-respect and independence to which I have long been a stranger.

Revolution is said to turn the dregs uppermost; yet the appearance and manner of those who now appear on the scene contradict the common proverb.

A system was pursued that has been characterized as a perpetual violation of all law, and a practical denial of Christianity.

The latter were a sect to defend a vile political creed, and inflict chastisement on those who opposed it; but the former are banded together to assert the sacred rights of liberty.

They are admirable, and in themselves amount to a beneficial revolution; but the better and the more sweeping the changes that are introduced, the greater the necessity for some established government.

All contracts on property for the benefit of the order are annulled.

The order of Jesuits, with all their dependencies, is abolished in the territory.

The trial by jury in criminal cases is to be established.

Twelve infant asylums, one for each quarter, are to be established in the capital at the public expense, and are to be municipal institutions.

All custom-house barriers between Sicily and the Neapolitan continent are abolished.

All political prisoners are to be liberated immediately.

It was no bad emblem of the whole sea and land might of the Bourbon—worse than useless against foreign aggression, wholly and exclusively directed to crush internal commotion.

Finally, respecting other people's houses: we are resolved to be masters in our own house, whether the powerful of the earth like it or not.

I repeat it, concord is the first want of Italy, so we will welcome as brothers those who once disagreed with us, but now sincerely wish to bring their stone to raise up the monument of our country.

Victor Emanuel, the model of all sovereigns, will impress upon his descendants the duty that they owe to the prosperity of a people which has elected him for their chief with enthusiastic devotion.