Impressed with this idea, it was about the beginning of last year that I left London for Rome. I well knew that the Inquisition had existed in full vigour during the whole period of the pontificate of Pope Gregory; but I naturally thought it was extinct under Pius IX. Indeed I felt quite persuaded that the Inquisitors, not only in Rome, but throughout the whole of the Papal States, had no longer any opportunity for the exercise of their abilities; that the localities of the Holy Office, throughout all the States of Rome, were converted to other uses; that all its prisons were thrown open; that the immense host of secretaries, officers, clerks, familiars, of every description, who were its spies and agents, were altogether dismissed, and that its very name would no longer be known in Rome. On the 5th of February, 1849, the Constituent Assembly met at Rome; on the evening of the 8th, it was solemnly decreed that the temporal power of the Pope should cease, in consequence of his flight from the city, and his desertion of his subjects; and the new Government assumed the title of the Roman Republic. The day following, this decree was proclaimed from the Campidoglio, and in a moment the aspect of all things was changed. The Rome of the popes became the Rome of the people. The papal arms were torn down, ecclesiastical rights and privileges abolished, onerous taxes done away with--everything was altered. To the priests, no other possession remained than the Church; and even of this the property was vested in the popular authorities. A fortnight after the new Government had been in power, it was arranged that the deputies, the triumvirate, the military, and the people, should assemble together, on the Sunday, in the Church of St. Peter, to offer up their solemn thanksgiving in a "_Te Deum_." I was myself present on the occasion, accompanied by some friends; and we all of us, from our hearts, offered up our thanks to the Lord, for having delivered our country from the heavy yoke of the pontifical government; and to my thanksgiving I added a prayer for the overthrow of the popish religion--the most pernicious and corrupt system of moral slavery that has ever been invented by the ingenuity of man.