No. 281.
Mr. Marsh to Mr. Fish.
Sir: The Italian government has at length decided to dissolve the present and elect a new Chamber of Deputies, and I inclose herewith a journal containing the royal proclamation for the dissolution and new elections, as well as for the convocation of Parliament on the 5th of December next.
The same journal contains the report of the council to the King on the Papal question, and you will perceive that the guarantees now offered to the Papacy are more limited than those which had been proposed on some former occasions.
Public opinion has pronounced itself on this point, as well as on the removal of the capital to Rome, in a way which can be neither misinterpreted nor resisted, and in reference to this latter measure, conspicuous political men have gone so far as to declare, in numerously attended public meetings, that the refusal or long delay of the government to fulfill the national aspirations would very seriously endanger the monarchy.
These declarations, which the ministers very well know were not empty chimeras, have been warmly applauded, and they, and other energetic expressions of the popular will, have, no doubt, had their influence in bringing the ministry to a decision.
The assertion of the ministry in the report that “The removal of the seat of government to Florence, and the convention of the 15th of September, devised with a view of facilitating the solution of this arduous question, by affirming anew the right of the Romans to vindicate their own liberties, rekindled the national aspirations for Rome,” is, to say the least, noteworthy, and will not, taken in all its parts, be received with universal assent by persons well informed in regard to the history of the convention, and its influence on the public sentiment of Italy.