Italy. 117 



' In the mean lime, the Pope at the head of all the Italian despots 

 combined a politico-religious confederation, in order to purify the 

 country of all those who were supposed to be infected with liberal 

 or republican principles. Pius VI., as a Roman Pontiff, excommuni- 

 cated republican France, and all tho.se who professed or embraced 

 republicanism; and, as a temporal prince, established a new inquisi- 

 torial Camera, expressly for the discovery and speedy condemnation 

 and punishment of the republicans. Caroline of Austria, sister of 

 Marie Antoinette of France, and Queen and King- of Naples, estab- 

 lished under the direction of her favourite Acton the famous Junta 

 Vanni, Castelcicala, and Guidobaldi, which not only introduced in 

 that oppressed kingdom the reign of terror and persecution, but in 

 order to comply with the wishes of that revengeful female tyrant, 

 and to indulge its own private animosity and rancour, demoralized 

 also a part of the nation to obtain from it false denunciations against 

 the other, and having insidiously stretched its snares all over the 

 country, no sex, age, or class was spared. This politico -inquisitorial 

 tribunal held its sittings day and night, always surrounded with 

 gibbets and executioners, and every day was marked with execu- 

 tions of the most enlightened Neapolitans, who had only been either 

 denounced or simply suspected of being tainted with liberal principles. 

 During four years this ferocious junta of cannibals dispatched on the 

 scaffold more than 60,000 political victims, without granting them 

 the least means either of proving their innocence or of defending 

 themselves. 



The same system was also adopted by Victor Amadeus of Sardi- 

 nia, and a political inquisition was by him founded at Turin, which 

 acted strictly on the principles of the Roman and Neapolitan juntas. 

 This cruel king, after having for years oppressed his subjects, abdi- 

 cated the* crown, turned and died a Jesuit at Rome, and is on the 

 road to canonization as a saint by the court of Rome. 



The states, under the absolute dominion of the Austrian family, 

 were of course visited by the same inquisitorial persecution, and at 

 Florence, Parma, Placentia, and Modena, were established anti- 

 liberal and anti-republican tribunals with unlimited powers. Thus 

 Italy was condemned to suffer unmerited hardships in consequence 

 of the horrors and cruelties that were perpetrated on the other side 

 of the Alps by the furious demagogues and Montagnards of the 

 convention. 



The blood, however, of the Italian political martyrs flowing in 

 streams throughout the peninsula, greatly encreased the discontent 

 and hatred of the nation against their tyrannical oppressors ; and when 

 Bonaparte, having effected his wonderful descent from the Alps, 

 defeated the Austrians and all the satellities of the petty Italian 

 despots, the patriots hailed his arrival with joy, and received him as 

 the saviour of their country. But they were afterwards greatly de- 

 ceived in their expectations, because the Corsican commander-in- 

 chief of the French republican army, by his promise of liberty and 

 independence, and by his prompt erection and sanction of the Cis- 

 Alpine republic, had only in view the enrichment of France at the 

 expense of Italy and the Italians. It is a fact, that every treaty 



