THE ENGLISH PRISONERS IN NAPLES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume X, Issue 591, 3 July 1858, Page 3

THE ENGLISH PRISONERS IN NAPLES.

Some time ago, upon an application to the Foreign Office, Lord Clarendon instructed Mr. • William Watt, of Neweastle-on-Tyne, to proceed with a Queen's messenger to Naples to see Mr. Henry Watt, his brother, one of the English engineers taken from on board the Cagliari, and subsequently .imprisoned in Salerno. Mr. William Watt has returned to Newcastle, and the daily paper of that'town published since then a conversation its editor has had with him concerning his brother Henry and the other Englishman, Park. The editor says,— " We have had a conversation with Mr. William Watt, the brother of one of the unfortunate engineers at present detained as prisoner, in the dominions of the King of the two Sicilies. He spent a week with his brother, who is now an inmate of the English hospital at Naples, and, though it is admitted that, owing to the exertions of the acting Consul, Mr. Barbar, and the medical skill and attention of Mr. Roskelly, an English medical man resident in Naples, he is much improved, yet he appears to be sadly shattered in mind; and that, in fact, his nervous system and general health are so much deranged, that he despairs of ever seeing him restored to his wonted state of mind and body. He is filled with fears and suspicions, and falls into occasional fits of deep despondency, similar, he supposes, to that in which he made the attempt at self-destruction ; and nothing will convince him that, even were he restored to liberty, he is not a degraded and lost man. Mr. William Watt s<nys his brother used to be as strong as a lion and full of cour- - age ; and in proof of it instances his conduct on board the screw-ship the Countess of Strathmore, when that vessel foundered oft' Whitby. Henry was the engineer, and a portion of _the crew were taken off her deck by a ' billy-boy' that happened to turn up at the very nick of j time. He volunteered to be the last man that should be removed, and when he and a seaman were waiting for deliverance, after the captain and several others had been drowned, he endeavoured, though in vain, to infuse courage into the heart of his companion; and just before ha left the vessel, and when she was rapidly sinking, he had the coolness, before making himself fast by the rope which was to drag him through the raging wafers, to go down below and put his watch into his pocket. But the prisons of j the despot of Naples have broken a spirit wliich j no form of danger could abash. Mr. Watt attributes the wreck of his brother's mind to the early months of his imprisonment, before he j was removed to Salerno. He was kept in Naples for five months, immured in a dungeon so small, that he and Park could not pass each other without difficulty, and into which the light of day was scarcely permitted to enter, and fed on bread—of which his brother has brought home a fragment —that he could hardly masticate, and a kind of fetid soup at which the gorge of even the hungry rose. It was during this dreary period, the poor fellow told his brother, in one of his lucid intervals, that he found his mind was going wrong, and that, as he was stout and could get no exercise, he thought to combat the coming malady by rejecting even the wretched soup, and by living entirely upon bread and water. The tardy remonstrances of Lord Palmerston's Government

procured his removal to Salerno, and here liotfan he and Park were much better off. It wa*ft here that the Rev. Mr. Pugh visited thejln. They were restored to the light of day, had jfe-t signed to them a larger room, and in otheH; minor particulars the rigours of incarceration! were much abated. But relief came too lateo Watt's mind was no longer sound. He had-, been subjected to great privations, and, let us add, gross indignities, not the least of which was that he was not allowed the slightest communication with the world outside. He concluded that he was deserted both by his friends and his country. In short, hebecame thoroughly insane, and his insanity took the worst possible and apparently the most hopeless direction. He had no recollection of having attempted to commit suicide.

"Mr. William Watt also saw Park at Salerno, and 1113 account of him is not much more favorable than that relating to his brother. Park is liable, from the mobt trivial cause, to fall into nervous tromours, which are sometimes followed by fits lasting an hour or mure, but whether these fits are epileptic, or what may be their nature he cannot say. At all events, one thing is clear, that before he became an inmate in a Neapolitan prison, though tall, slender, and somewhat effeminate in features, yet he always enjoyed excellent health.. Henry Watt is 28 years of age; Park is 22. He is described as being light complexioned, and very prepossessing in appearance.

" The trial, it appears, is tc proceed without the presence of Henry Watt, and it is supposed that it will still occupy six wesks or even longer. The information was <*iven to Mr. William Watt by the Times' correspondent at Naples, and he is likely to be a good authority on the subject.

" Mr. Watt describes the Court of Salerno as presenting a strange and ghastly spectacle. The prisoners, about 300 in number, are nearly all young men, and would have been in the prime of manhood, if suffering and the dungeon had not effectually done their work. They were pale and emaciated; they all had sunken eyes and prominent cheek bones; they resembled a .crowd of animated corpses rather than living and breathing human beings; There was presented by them all a uniform expression of countenance, as if a common suffering had affixed on their shrinking faces and pinched features as common impression. Some he remarked particularly to be without sbirbs, others were affected with repulsive-looking skin ■diseases, and all were so loaded with pedieuli, that Park had to call for the assistance of Mr.. Barbar to obviate a visitation from this form of annoyance. By the interference of the Consul he was permitted to occupy a position at a short but needful distance from the sad and miserable crowd. Yet, in spite of outward humiliation, and the obliteration of external decency, Mr. Watt thought he could discern here and there a face that betokened an intelligence above the rest, and suggested to his mind that probably some of the disfigurations before him had descended to their present lowly plight from the gentle and educated classes. Mr. Watt declares that the sight he beheld in that court will haunt him to his dying hour. Yet, strange to say, neither despondency nor despair was marked on tbe countenances of these unfortunate men. They talked and sometime ssmiled; death to them had ceased to be a terror. They were sheep driven within the precincts of the shambles. Many of them, Mr. Watt tells us, will not wait for the execution of the judicial sentence; disease and death are busy among them."