'I, considering the present position of affairs, commended the course he proposed, more particularly as General La Marmora with 20,000 men was advancing on the City; and that he with his advanced guard was not more than twenty-four hours' march from Genoa. 'From this time matters took a more serious and determined course. The Genoese had by degrees screwed themselves up to do something, but they did not know what. The mob, now armed, soon began to feel that they must either work or plunder, and as they had arms in their hands, with the municipality and the General of the Guards committed to revolt against the authority of the Crown, they were easily worked on to begin the affair. Whilst reading the newspapers at the public room, I was roused from my ease by the _generale_ being beat through the streets. I took my way to the dockyard, where, on arriving, I found a fieldpiece brought up against the gate. At this moment the gates were opened and the mob rushed in, a few muskets were fired, I have since found by people looking out of the windows, and the pillage of arms and shot began. I met the Admiral, still out of uniform. I was ashamed to look at him; I put my hands before my face and passed him without speaking. 'I went on board the ship and from her deck witnessed the attack of the National Guards and mob on General Asarta's headquarters. Their easy victory over the Admiral stimulated them to act against the General; a fire of musketry and cannon was opened from both sides and was maintained for nearly an hour, when the city party retreated leaving the guns in the hands of the General and twenty-one men dead--how many women was never known. 'The General lost two killed and three women. Among the killed was a colonel of one of his own regiments. The city was now fairly up, the tocsin was rung, everybody took up arms, barricades were thrown up everywhere, and troops bivouacked in the streets. Sentinels, both male and female, stood at the barricades, and priests in their proper garments shouldered the musket. This evening a barbarous murder of a Colonel of Carbineers was committed by the armed populace; he after the attack on the arsenal put on a plain coat, and walked out to see his wife who was alone at his home in the town. He was recognised by the people, they led him to a church where twenty-one bodies of the slain were laid out, they ordered him to count the bodies audibly. He did so. They then said, "We want twenty-two and you shall be the twenty-second." With that he was pierced with bayonets and shot at. From this mode of treatment he was an hour and a half before death released his sufferings. His wife was hunted from house to house till she found shelter on board the _Vengeance_.