Besides, when any of these assassins has not had the good fortune to get within the portico of a church before he is seized by the Sbirri, and when he is actually carried to prison, it is not a very difficult matter for his friends or relations to prevail, by their entreaties and tears, on some of the Cardinals or Princes, to interfere in his favour, and endeavour to obtain his pardon. If this is the case, and I am assured from authority which fully convinces me, that it is, we need be no longer surprised that murder is more common among the Italian populace than among the common people of any other country. As soon as asylums for such criminals are abolished, and justice is allowed to take its natural course, that foul stain will be entirely effaced from the national character of the modern Italians. This is already verified in the Grand Duke of Tuscany’s dominions. The same edict which declared that churches and convents should no longer be places of refuge for murderers, has totally put a stop to the use of the stiletto; and the Florentine populace now fight with the same blunt weapons that are used by the common people of other nations. I am afraid you will think I have been a little prolix on this occasion; but I had two objects in view, and was solicitous about both. The first was to shew, that the treacherous and perfidious disposition imputed to the Italians, is, like most other national reflections, ill founded; and that the facts brought in proof of the accusation, proceed from other causes: the second was, to demonstrate to certain choleric gentlemen, who pretend to have ungovernable tempers, as an excuse for rendering every creature dependent on them miserable, that in their furious fits they not only behave ridiculously, but basely. In civil life, in England, they have the power of only making themselves contemptible; but in the army or navy, or in our islands, they often render themselves the objects of horror. LETTER XLIV. Rome.