others engaged; and
it turned out that our consuls and vice-consuls, all animated by
the same spirit, all in favour of rebellion and against the lawful
sovereignty, all agreed in one fact as the ground of the charge,--they
all said that eight hours after the resistance had ceased the
bombardment was continued. It might naturally be supposed that, with
this continued bombardment, much blood would be spilt; and when all
our agents are dwelling on this continuance as a cruelty, every reader
must conclude that needless carnage was perpetrated, and much blood
shed. But no such thing; not one drop could be spilt, and why? Because
every creature had left the town before the eight hours had commenced
to run! But the bombardment was continued for two reasons. In the
first place, every house, as in Paris, was a fort; and, secondly,
the Neapolitan commander could not possibly trust the white flag
immediately after he had lost a whole battalion by a false flag being
hoisted to decoy them into ambush, where the ground was mined. But no
single fact of needless cruelty has been proved against the King of
Naples, though I know, from a person attached to our Navy, and in
those seas at that time, whose account I have read, as also from that
of a traveller accidentally on board of one of the Queen's ships
at the time, that there were cruelties of the most disgusting and
revolting description committed by the Sicilians, and not one word of
reference to which can be found in all the curiously selected papers
that load your table. In the mass things are to be found, indeed,
much against the wishes of the selectors, and also of their agents in
Sicily and Naples. This is owing to their clumsy design of telling
what they think will exalt the rebel and damage the loyal party,
without always perceiving that these statements cut more ways
than one. Thus, a number of consuls sign a statement that all
the inhabitants had left Messina. This is contrived to show that
resistance had ceased; but it also proves that no cruelty could be
committed by the bombardment. Again, we are told that 1,500, by one
zealous agent's account, had been slain of the King's troops: but Lord
Napier's hotter zeal is not satisfied with this number, and he makes
it 3,000. The object of putting forward this statement is to exalt the
rebel valour, and give a more formidable aspect to the revolt. But the
zeal in one direction forgets that the same parade of numbers also
shows how