The best policy for the Royalists would have been to bring overwhelming numbers to bear on a single point, and, breaking the line, to march straight on the capital. They were doubtless afraid of an advance which would have left a portion of the Garibaldian army unbeaten in their rear. Nevertheless, of the chances that remained to them, this was the best. At Naples there were no Garibaldian troops to speak of, and the powers of reaction had been working night and day to procure for the rightful King the reception due to a saviour of society. Perhaps they would not have completely failed. There were nobles who were sulking, shopkeepers who were frightened, professional beggars with whom the Dictator had opened a fierce but unequal contest, for no blue-bottle fly is more difficult to tackle than a genuine Neapolitan mendicant; there were priests who, though not by any means all unpatriotic, were beginning to be scared by Garibaldi's gift of a piece of land for the erection of an English church, and by the sale of Diodati's Bible in the streets. And finally, there was the Carrozzella driver whom a Garibaldian officer had struck because he beat his horse. These individuals formed a nucleus respectably numerous, if not otherwise respectable, of anxious watchers for the Happy Return. If anyone question the fairness of this catalogue of the partisans of the fallen dynasty, the answer is, that had their ranks contained worthier elements, they would not have carefully reserved the demonstration of their allegiance till the King should prove that he had the right of the strongest.