"I was stupefied, and called again and again on death, but in vain; the triumph of my captors was made complete, for I was alive and enchained. From the galleys of Civita Vecchia I was, after several months, sent to Rome, and subsequently liberated, after being compelled to take an oath to obey and maintain the authority of the Pope--an oath to serve faithfully an impostor and a despot, to swear to obey him, even if the command were to murder one's father and mother. And I swore--I tell you the whole truth--but I swore also, along with it, war on themselves, and while this life lasts I am their enemy to the bitter end." PART THE THIRD. CHAPTER LXIII. THE CAIROLIS AND THEIR SEVENTY COMPANIONS. A people well-governed and contented do not rebel. Insurrections and revolutions are the weapons of the oppressed and the slave. The inciting causes of such are tyrannies. The apparent exceptions, originating from different circumstances, are, when closely examined, found to be the offspring of moral or material despotisms. England, Switzerland, and the United States have experienced, and may still experience, insurrections, although these countries are by no means badly governed. Switzerland has had her Sonderbunds, and England her Fenians. These latter are chiefly kept in vigor by the Romish priests, through the moral tyranny exercised by them over the most ignorant of the population in Ireland. The United States have witnessed, in these latter years, a terrible revolution, caused by the material tyranny the rich colonists of the South exercised over their slaves, which they, moreover, desired to extend to the other States of the Union. Moral or material tyranny is always the cause of revolution. And in Rome who can deny that both moral and material tyranny is exercised? Yes, in Rome exists the twofold revolting despotism of the priests who lay Italy at the feet of the stranger; who sell her for their profit! Theirs is the most depraved of all forms of tyranny. Picture a dreary, dark, windy, damp night in October. The rain has ceased to fall on the glistening and foaming surface of the Tiber. The banks of the river are muddy and furrowed, for every ditch has become a torrent, and scarcely a vestige of dry and solid ground is perceptible. In several boats behold seventy men, armed with poniards and revolvers, and a few miscellaneous muskets. Their habiliments were far too thin for that cold rainy night. But the Seventy were warmed by the heat of heroism. Rome on this night was to rise in rebellion.