peace--the arrest of Garibaldi and his embarkation for Caprera.
This they did not do; confining themselves to the recall of the
Marquis Pallavicini. Garibaldi went over the ground made glorious by
his former exploits--past Calatafimi to Marsala. It was at Marsala
that, while he harangued his followers in a church, a voice in the
crowd raised a cry of '_Rome or death!_' 'Yes; Rome or death!'
repeated Garibaldi; and thus the watchword originated which will
endure written in blood on the Bitter Mount and on the Plain of
Nomentum. Who raised it first? Perhaps some humble Sicilian fisherman.
Its haunting music coming he knew not whence, sounding in his ear like
an omen, was what wedded Garibaldi irrevocably to the undertaking. It
was the casting interposition of chance, or, shall it be said, of
Providence? Like all men of his mould, Garibaldi was governed by
poetry, by romance. Besides the general patriotic sentiment, he had a
peculiar personal feeling about Rome, 'which for me,' he once wrote,
'is Italy.' In 1849, the Assembly in its last moments invested him
with plenary powers for the defence of the Eternal City, and this
vote, never revoked, imposed on his imagination a permanent mandate.
'Rome or death' suggested an idea to him which he had never before
entertained, prodigal though he had been of his person in a hundred
fights: What if his own death were the one thing needful to
precipitate the solution of the problem?
From Marsala he returned to Palermo, where, in the broad light of day,
he summoned the Faithful, who came, as usual, at his bidding, without
asking why or where?--the happy few who followed him in 1859 and 1860;
who would follow him in 1867, and even in 1870, when they gave their
lives for a people that did not thank them, because he willed it so.
He sent out also a call to the Sicilian _Picciotti_, the _Squadre_ of
last year; and it is much to their credit that they too who cared
possibly remarkably little for _Roma Capitale_, obeyed the man who had
freed them. And Rattazzi knew of all this, and did nothing.
On the 1st of August, Garibaldi took command of 3000 volunteers in the
woods of Ficuzza. Then, indeed, the Government wasted much paper on
proclamations, and closed the door of the stable when the horse was
gone. General Cugia was sent to Palermo to repress the movement.
Nevertheless Garibaldi, with his constantly increasing band, made a
triumphant progress across the island, and a more than royal entry
into Catania. At Mezzojuso he was present at a _Te Deum_ chanted in
his honour. On the 22nd, when the royal troops were, it seems, really
ordered to march on Catania, Garibaldi took possession of a couple of
merchant vessels that had just reached the port, and sailed away by
night for the Calabrian coast with about 1000 of his men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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