672 Mr. Walter Frewen Lord [March 11, 



its self-restralDt. He said that he did not see how England could 

 expect Italy to be pacified, unless sbe would send out a man who 

 would jDay some attention to his instructions. But it is not so much 

 with Bentinck's personality that I would occupy you, as with his 

 policy. Now the keynote of Bentinck's policy was implacable hos- 

 tility to Murat because he Wi.s an adventurer, and unfaltering support 

 of tlie Bourbon Ferdinand because he was a legitimate monarch. 

 And yet, when Murat had fallen and Ferdinand was once more en- 

 throned at Naples, F( rdinand was not grateful for a restoration which 

 was almost entiiely Bentinck's work. On the contrary, when Ben- 

 tinck proposed to winter at Naples, Ferdinand conveyed to him a 

 strong hint that he would do better to stop away. Wben — Bentincl:- 

 like — be braved the hint, the King sent him his passports. When 

 Bentinck hesitated to use them, the King intimated that he would 

 have him arrested and turned out of Naples by armed force. All 

 that is not consistent, not natural. What explanation does the 

 historian give of so contradictory a state of things? The most 

 exhaustive historian of this jDcriod is an Austrian, who naturally 

 takes the liarshest view of Lo:d William Bentinck because he bullied 

 Maria Caroline, of Sicily, who was an Austrian archduchess by birth. 

 He says that if Bentinck's conduct at this ej)och has the inconse- 

 quence of a lunatic's action, it is because all turns uj)on some secret 

 spring of action. " Bentinck," he says, " wanted Sicily for himself. 

 See how that explains everything. It explains that mysterious clause 

 in the Sicilian constitution by which the comidete separation of 

 Naples from Sicily was decreed. With this in his mind, Bentinck 

 naturally did not want to leave Murat in Naples, b( cause that would 

 have entailed the necessity of leaving Ferdinand in Sicily, where 

 Bentinck wanted to rule himself. Nothing less than so grtat an 

 ambition could have caused even Bentinck to deliberately violate his 

 instructions for not merely a week or so, but for four months. Finally, 

 it explains Ferdinand's hatred for his benefactor." It does, and 

 most satisfactorily — if we could only bring ourselves to believe any- 

 thing so outrageously incredible. 



At the time when this conjecture was published, it could have 

 been no more than a conjecture ; for the papers disclosing the actual 

 state of affairs were not accessible to the public. 



My compliments to the Austrian for his insight. For, ladies and 

 gentlemen, I present you with the astounding conclusion, that the 

 outrageously incredible is nothing less on this occasion than the 

 truth. To annex Sicily to England and rule the Island himself as 

 Viceroy is precisely what Lord William Bentinck was aiming at. 

 That, and not pious wrath, was the secret of his hatred of Murat ; 

 that, and not attachment to the cause of a legitimate sovereign, was 

 the reason for his championing the cause of Ferdinand. 



On the 5th of May, 1814, he received from Lord Castlereagh the 

 explicit command to officially disavow to the Crown Prince of Sicily 

 any such jjlan either of his own or of the British Government. In 



