The press being free in England, there needed no conspiracy here. An engraved card, still hanging in a little frame in many a weaver's and miner's house in the North of England, was issued at a shilling each on behalf of funds for European freedom, signed by Mazzini for Italy, Kossuth for Hungary, and Worcell for Poland. When editing the _Reasoner_ I received one morning a letter from Mazzini, dated 15, Radnor Street, King's Road, Chelsea, June 12, 1852. This was the only one of Mazzini's letters bearing an address and date I ever saw, as I have said. It began:-- "My dear Sir,--You have once, for the Taxes on Knowledge question, collected a very large sum by dint of sixpences. Could you not do the same, if your conscience approved the scheme, for the Shilling Subscription [then proposed for European freedom]? I have never made any appeal for material help to the English public, but once the scheme is started, I cannot conceal that I feel a great interest in its success. A supreme struggle will take place between Right and Might, and any additional strength imparted to militant Democracy at this time is not to be despised. Still, the _moral_ motive is even more powerful with me. The scheme is known in Italy, and will be known in Hungary, and it would be extremely important for me to be able to tell my countrymen that it has not proved a failure. "Ever faithfully yours, "Joseph Mazzini." I explained to the readers of the _Reasoner_ the great service they might render to European freedom at that time by a shilling subscription from each. Very soon we received 4,000 shillings. Later (August 3, 1852) Mazzini, writing from Chelsea, said:-- "My dear Sir,--I have still to thank you for the noble appeal you have inserted in the _Reasoner_ in favour of the Shilling Subscription in aid of European freedom. My friend Giovanni Peggotti, fearing that physical and moral torture might weaken his determination and extort from him some revelations, has hung himself in his dungeon at Milan, with his own cravat. State trials are about being initiated by military commissions, and General Benedek, the man who directed the wholesale Gallician butcheries, is to preside over them. At Forli, under Popish rule, enforced by Austrian bayonets, four working men have been shot as guilty of having defended themselves against the aggression of some Government agents. The town was fined in a heavy sum, because on that mournful day many of the inhabitants left it, and the theatres were empty in the evening. "Faithfully yours, "Joseph Mazzini." People of England have mostly forgotten now what Italians had to suffer when their necks were under the ferocious heel of Austria. In a short time I collected a further 5,000 shillings, making 9,000 in all, and I had the pleasure of sending to Mazzini a cheque for £450.* * The expenses of collection I defrayed myself.