No. 195.
Mr. Marsh to Mr. Frelinghuysen .

[Extract.]
No. 1029.]

Sir: By yesterday’s post I forwarded to the State Department copies of four of the leading daily journals of Rome containing obituary notices of General Giuseppe Garibaldi, who died at his residence on the island of Caprera on the evening of the 2d of June.

General Garibaldi had for many years been a great sufferer from chronic rheumatism and other complaints, but I am not aware that there was any sensible decay in his mental powers until the near approach of the final catastrophe. This was probably hastened by the fatigue and excitement attendant on his visit to Palermo on the anniversary of the celebrated Sicilian Vespers, where it was feared that his presence might tend rather to inflame than to allay the actual natural irritation both against France and against the Church, which historic recollections and recent events have combined so strongly to aggravate. But either prudential considerations (of which Garibaldi, with all his enthusiasm of character, has seldom lost sight) or the languor of mortal disease restrained him from any such expressions of his known opinions and feelings towards the Tuileries and the Vatican as could give just cause of offence to the incumbents of high positions in either of those quarters.

The obituary details in the Italian journals contain many interesting facts in regard to the career of this remarkable man, but there is a certain reticence observable in most of them with reference to some events which the mystery that in spite of their recent date still hangs over them, renders Italian publicists shy of approaching.* * *

The last few years of Garibaldi’s life were passed in retirement and comparative quiet. He did not exercise nor even attempt to exercise any partisan influence in the affairs of Italy. But to the beginning of this period of repose, when he had not yet ceased to be a power in Europe, belongs one of the grandest, perhaps the grandest and most significant act of his life. Though repeatedly elected to the House of Deputies in [Page 369] the Italian Parliament, he first took his seat in Rome in 1876. At this period the political institutions of Italy, though they had apparently received their definite form, had not got completely into working order, nor had their action become so thoroughly a part of the common consciousness of the more or less discordant jurisdictions which had united to form a legal body politic, as to exclude all danger from disturbing influences. The Church was still avowedly hostile to the new political state; the attitude of the European governments in general towards it was as yet uncertain. Garibaldi, “who had never fully received the support or the confidence of the Italian aristocracy, though enjoying the most unbounded popularity among all other classes of his countrymen” was known to be exposed to influences not altogether friendly to the actual Government of Italy at that moment. His attitude, therefore, towards the new kingdom, as finally established at Rome (which city when he was last within its walls he was desperately defending as a republic against Napoleonic France) was a matter of extreme solicitude. It was not known whether he would take his seat in Parliament under the obligation imposed by the official oath required of deputies, and there was reason to fear that his refusal to do so would be the signal for the outburst of a new revolution whose extent and effects it was quite impossible to foresee. When, therefore, in the presence of the royal family and court, the assembled Parliament, and a vast multitude of spectators, he arose in his seat and by the word “giuro” pronounced his adhesion to the obligation implied by the oath recited to him by the proper officer, the sense of relief from an impending danger was manifested by a burst of applause from the excited audience, which was echoed and re-echoed by the expectant crowds that thronged the avenues to the Parliament-house and the adjacent streets. From that moment it was felt that Italy was not onlyfree but safe.

Many times, however, both before and since that eventful day, the zealous patriotism and ardent philanthropy of Garibaldi have led him, not only in his private but also in his public utterances, to manifest a natural impatience with the government that old abuses were so slowly done away with, and that the moral and physical condition of the poorer class was not more rapidly improved. But all these outbursts of dissatisfaction have been set down both by prince and people to their true source, an enthusiastic love of his country and of humanity, and all classes alike, from the throne to the humblest peasant, are now rivaling each other in doing honor to the memory of one of the most extraordinary men that have appeared in any age or in any country. All Italy has assumed the badge of mourning; the King has expressed in strong terms sympathy with the bereaved family and with the kingdom on their great his loss; Parliament has voted a pension to each of his children and decreed a national monument in his memory; every large town is preparing to erect memorial statues, or taking other steps to do him honor, and every village and hamlet is manifesting its respect and affection according to its ability to do so. Garibaldi’s political life was so closely associated with the history of the reign of Napoleon III that it can hardly be judged of by this generation or by the succeeding one. * * * The private life, the personal adventures, and the military career of Giuseppe Garibaldi will, in the mean time, form an important constituent in the legendary history of our country, and the rare personal qualities which characterize him as a true soldier, but which the military pedantry of the schools have denied to him, will be universally acknowledged by posterity.

I have, &c.,

GEORGE P. MARSH.