MAZZINI'S DEFENCE OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 465, 16 January 1850, Page 4

MAZZINI'S DEFENCE OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.

We copy the following defence by M. Mtzzini, of the Roman Republic, from a private letter^ which appeared in the Daily News ; —

' Roin ones ,'fallen ! lit, is /a igxeaA mimti ,and^ great error. The. crime belongs entire, ly to France ; the error Jo civilized Europe, ■and above all to yonr England. I say to yoat England, for in the three questions 7 wfoieh 'ato toow tft4'ssue in Rome, "fciid ■which/ it is in vain to attempt to stifle by brute force, ' England appears to me, and did appear to f us r all, to be especially concerned. Three questions — tbe question of principle, of international right, of European morality— the political question, properly so called, the balance of power iv Europe, influence to be preserved or obtained — and the religious question — all were, in fact, raised already in Rome before the entrance of the French. The question of principle is, thank God, sufficiently clear. A population of more thaii two millions of men having peacefully, solemnly, *nd legally dbosen, through a constitutional assembly regularly elected, a form of government, it deprived of it by foreign violence, and forced again to submit to the power which "bad been abolished ; and that without that population 'having furnished ,the slightest pretext for such violence, -or made the slightest attempt against the peace of neighbouring countries. v The calumnies which have been for months systematically circulated against our republic, are of little importance ; it was necessary to defame those whom it bad been determined to destroy. But I ,affirra that the republic, voted almost unanimously by »the assembly, had the general and spontaneous approbation of the country ; and of this the explicit declaration of almost all tihe municipalities of the Roman States renewed at of the French invasion, without any initiative on the part of the Roman government is a decisive proof. I affirm that with tbe e,xcep.tion of Ancona, where the triumvirate were obliged energetically to repress- certain criminal acts of political vengeance, the republican cause was never sullied by .the slightest excess ; .that never was there any censorship assumed over the press before the &iegej, never did the occasion arise for exercising it during the siege, not a single condemnation >to death or exile bore witness to a severity which it would have been our right to have exercised, but which the perfect ' Unanimity which reigned amongst all tbe elements of the state rendered useless. J. affirm that, except in the case of three or four priestSj whp had been guilty of firing on our combatants, and who were killed by the people during the last days of the siege, not a single act of personal violence was committed by any fraction of ihe population against another, and that if ever there was a town presenting a spectacle of a band of brothers pursuing a common end, and bound together by the same faith, it was Rome under the republican rule. The city was inhabited with foreigners from all parts of tbe world, by the consular agents, by many of your countrymen ; let any one of them arise and under the guarantee of his own signature deny, if he can; the truth of what I say. Terror now reigns in Rome ; the prisons are choked with men who have been arrested and detained without trial ; fifty priests are confined in the castle of St. Angelo, whose only crime consists in their having lent their services in our hospitals ; the citizens, the best known for their moderation, are exiled ; the army is almost entirely dissolved, the city disarmed, and the " factious" sent away even to the last man ; and yet France dares not consult in a legal manner-Che will of the population, but re-establishes the papal authority by military decree. Ido not believe that since tbe dismemberment .of Poland there has been committed a more atrocious injustice, a more gross violation of the eternal right which God has implanted in the people, that of appreciating and defining for themselves their own life, and governing themselves in accordance with their own appreciation of it. And I cannot believe that it .is well for you or for Europe that such things can be accomplished in the eyes of the world without one nation arising out of its immobility to protest in the name of univeisa) justice ! This is to enthrone brute force where by the power of reason, God alone should reign ; it is to substitute the sword And the poniard for law — to. decree a ferocious wwavr v without limit of time or means withottt oppressors rendered suspicious by their fears, and the oppressed abandoned to the instincts' of reaction and isolation*. Let Europe ponder upon these things. For if the light of human morality becomes but a little more obscured, in that darkness there will arise a" strife that will make those who come after us shudder with dread.