rities on the 18th of April 1814. A naval demonstration following
an ably-conducted operation, by which Bentinck's hybrid force of
Greeks and Calabrese, with a handful of English, became master of the
two principal forts, hastened this conclusion, but the Genoese had no
reluctance to open their gates to the English commander, who inspired
them with the fullest confidence. He came invested with the halo of a
constitution-maker-under-difficulties; it was known that he had
stopped at nothing in carrying out his mission in Sicily; not even at
getting rid of the Queen, who found in Bentinck the Nemesis for having
led a greater Englishman to stain his fame in the roads of Naples.
Driven rather than persuaded to leave Sicily, Marie Antoinette's
sister encountered so frightful a sea voyage that she died soon after
joining her relations at Vienna. Lord William had acquired the art of
writing the finest appeals to the love of freedom; a collection of his
manifestoes would serve as handy-book to anyone instructed to stir up
an oppressed nationality. He immediately gave the Genoese some
specimens of his skill as a writer, and by granting them at once a
provisional constitution, he dispelled all doubts about the future
recognition of their republic. What was not, therefore, their dismay,
when they were suddenly informed of the decision of the Holy Alliance
to make a present of them to the people whom, of all others, they
probably disliked the most. Italians had not ceased yet from reserving
their best aversion for their nearest neighbours.

Bentinck did not mean to deceive; perhaps he thought that by going
beyond the letter of his instructions he should draw his government
after him. That he did, in effect, deceive, cannot be denied; even
Lord Castlereagh, while necessarily refusing to admit that definite
promises had been made, yet allowed that, 'Of course he would have
been glad if the proclamation issued to the Genoese had been more
precisely worded.' The motive of the determination to sacrifice the
republic was, he said, 'a sincere conviction of the necessity of a
barrier between France and Italy, which ought to be made effectual on
the side of Piedmont. The object was to commit the defence of the Alps
and of the great road leading round them by the Gulf of Genoa, between
France and Italy, to the same power to which it had formerly been
entrusted. On that principle, the question relating to Genoa had been
entertained and decided