The indignation created by Gladstone's letters extended beyond England to France and Germany, and probably had no slight influence in the final overthrow of the King of Naples, whose government was the most unjust, tyrannical, and cruel in Europe, and perhaps on the face of the globe. Its chief evil was not in chaining suspected politicians of character and rank to the vilest felons, and immuring them in underground cells too filthy and horrible to be approached even by physicians, for months and years before their mock-trials began, but in the utter perversion of justice in the courts by judges who dared not go counter to the dictation or even wishes of the executive government with its deadly and unconquerable hatred of everything which looked like political liberty. All these things and others Mr. Gladstone exposed with an eloquence glowing and burning with righteous and fearless indignation. The Neapolitan government attempted to make a denial of the terrible charges; but the defence was feeble and inconclusive, and the statesman who made the accusation was not convicted even of exaggeration, although the heartless tyrant may have felt that he was no more guilty than other monarchs bent on sustaining absolutism at any cost and under any plea in the midst of atheists, assassins, and anarchists. It is said that Warren Hastings, under the terrible invectives of Burke, felt himself to be the greatest criminal in the world, even when he was conscious of having rendered invaluable services to Great Britain, which the country in the main acknowledged. In one sense, therefore, a statement may be rhetorically exaggerated, even when the facts which support it are incontrovertible, as the remorseless logic of Calvin leads to deductions which no one fully believes,--the _decretum quidem horribile_, as Calvin himself confessed. But is it easy to convict Mr. Gladstone of other exaggeration than that naturally produced by uncommon ability to array facts so as to produce conviction, which indeed is the talent of the advocate rather than that of the judge? The year 1848 was a period of agitation and revolution in every country in Europe; and most governments, being unpopular, were compelled to suppress riots and insurrections, and to maintain order under exceeding difficulties. England was no exception; and public discontents had some justification in the great deficiency in the national treasury, the distress of Ireland, and the friction which new laws, however beneficent, have to pass through.