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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 1382: DISCUSSIONS IN THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT CONCERNING THE STATE OF AFFAIRS AT NAPLES.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

DISCUSSIONS IN THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT CONCERNING THE STATE OF AFFAIRS AT NAPLES.

Throughout the year 1851 the state of the kingdom of Naples attracted the attention of the civilized world, but made most impression in England. The King of Naples was a bigot and a tyrant, a man of obstinate will, and he exhibited a fierce hatred to both civil and religious liberty. During the European struggle for freedom, in 1848, he swore to give a constitution to his subjects, and to observe it for ever. Utterly faithless in his own character, he violated his oath when the opportunity of power permitted. The description Milton gives as the probable result of restoring Satan and his fallen host to their primitive glory, on professions of repentance, depicts the actual conduct of the Neapolitan Bourbon when he attained to power, after being spared by his subjects the humiliation so generally the lot of European princes in the great year of revolutions—

“Height would recall high thought, and ease recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void.”

A pamphlet, written by Mr. Gladstone, roused intelligent persons in England, and in Europe generally, to the atrocities perpetrated upon virtuous, loyal, and even illustrious subjects, in sheer wantonness of power, by the Neapolitan king. Lord Palmerston, then at the head of foreign affairs, sent a copy of the pamphlet to the English minister at every court of Europe, with the design of calling the attention of all civilized nations to the oppression with which the people of the kingdom of Naples were overwhelmed by their perjurious prince. This announcement was received by enthusiastic cheers in the House of Commons. Lord Palmerston, however, was disappointed in his expectation that the moral influence of Europe would be brought to bear upon the Neapolitan government, in favour of humanity. Some of the European states upheld the conduct of the King of Naples, and the pope especially lent him his moral support, although twenty thousand citizens of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies were incarcerated for expressing liberal opinions, or demanding the institutions which the king had sworn to respect. Thus supported by the despotic states, and the sovereign pontiff, he bid defiance to the constitutional states of Europe, and even increased the cruelties of his stern absolutism.