ld the people that Protestants were just devils in disguise.

The Government, I have said, was a mild one. It was more: it was
affected with the usual Italian sluggishness and indolence,--the _dolce
far niente_; and accordingly it winked at innumerable ongoings, so long
as these did not attract public attention. Bibles and religious
Protestant works were introduced secretly, the Government knowing it,
but winking at it, as the Church did not complain. The arrest of the
deputation from the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to the
Holy Land in 1839 was an exception to what I have now stated, but such
an exception as confirms the general statement. The deputation, with the
ignorance of us Britishers abroad for the first time, imagined that
because Leghorn was a free port, they were free to give away Bibles,
tracts, and all kinds of religious books; and accordingly they made
vigorous use of their time. Scarcely had they stepped on shore when they
commenced a liberal distribution of Bibles, books on the "Evidences,"
and other valuable works, among the boatmen, facchini, and beggars. It
did not occur to them, that of those to whom they gave these books, few
could read, and none were able to appreciate them. Many persons who
received these books carried them to the priests, who, confounded at
the suddenness as well as the boldness of the assault, carried them to
the police, and the police to the Government; and before the deputation
had been an hour and a half in Thomson's hotel, they were under arrest.
It was the Church which compelled the Government to interfere; and it is
the Church which is now driving forward the civil power in its mad
career of persecution. As a proof that we bring no heavier charge
against the priests than they deserve, we may mention, that in 1849 Dr
Stewart was summoned to appear before the delegate of Government, to
answer for having allowed one or two Italian Protestant ministers to
preach in his pulpit. The delegate informed him that the Government was
not taking this step of its own accord, but that the Archbishop of
Florence was compelling the Government to put the law in force, and that
the Archbishop was the prosecutor in the case.

The old statute of Ferdinand I., which allows to foreigners the full
exercise of their religion within the city of Leghorn, was taken
advantage of to open the Scotch church there. This was in 1845. It was
two years after this,--in the winter of 1847-48,--th