st reports of the Pope's liberal leanings, wrote
to the Nuncio Bedini at Montevideo, October 17, 1847, offering the
services of the Italian Legion to his Holiness, who was now almost on
the eve of a war with Austria, "although," the letter said, "the
writer was well aware that St. Peter's throne rests on a solid basis,
proof against all human attacks and needing no mortal defenders." The
Nuncio returned thanks and praises and referred Garibaldi's tender to
the Pontifical Government at Rome. But Garibaldi, never well disposed
to losing time, after vainly waiting for further communication from
Pope or Nuncio, brooked no longer delay. With incredible difficulty he
scraped together money and means, and embarked with his brave friend,
Anzani (who died at Genoa soon after landing), having with him only 85
men and two cannon, and leaving the remainder of his legion to follow
when and how it could.

He crossed the ocean, landed at Nice, proceeded to Genoa and Milan,
and when Charles Albert, defeated at Custozza, withdrew from the
Lombard city and accepted an armistice, which saved Piedmont from
invasion, August, 1848, Garibaldi passed over to Mazzini, and at the
head of a volunteer force, of which Mazzini was the standard-bearer,
issued a manifesto in which he proclaimed the Sardinian king a
traitor, and declared that "the royal war was at an end, and that of
the people was now to begin." That proclamation was, however, only an
idle bravado. Mazzini, even if he had the spirit, lacked the physical
strength of a fighting man. The Garibaldians, on hearing the news of
the fall of Milan, lost heart, and many crossed over the frontier to
Switzerland. With thinned and dispirited bands, Garibaldi, aided by
his friend Medici, ventured on a few desultory fights near Luino, on
Lake Maggiore, but soon fell back and withdrew to Lugano in the Canton
Ticino, his health, it is said, breaking down, and his immediate
followers being reduced to some three hundred.

A few months later Pius IX., fallen from his popularity and pressed
hard by his disaffected subjects, who murdered his minister and almost
stormed him in his palace at the Quirinal, ran away to Gaeta, and a
Roman Republic was proclaimed, of which Mazzini, in a triumvirate with
two others, mere men of straw, became the head. Attacked by the French
in flagrant violation of all rights of nations, Rome undertook to
defend itself, and whatever Italy could boast of generous hearts,
regardl