Your programme, if I mistake not, may be summed up as follows:—The formation of a single Assembly of representatives from the four States of Central Italy, such assembly to proceed immediately—To confirm in common the separate decisions arrived at with regard to the deposition of the Princes and the annexation to Piedmont; to publish a manifesto to Europe, short, but solemn, energetic, and rich in facts which justify this severe but unavoidable determination; to nominate a Regent, who shall assume in its entirety and in the name of the Sardinian Government the exercise of executive power, commencing with the appointment of a commander-in-chief to all the forces now under arms, such forces to be combined and formed into a single army. After this the Assembly would adjourn, leaving the Regent full power to have himself represented at the European Congress called for by this Assembly, in order to obtain a decision in conformity with the solemn vote of the country, and to repel any aggression on the part of _anybody_ who might intend forcibly to reinstate the deposed Princes. First of all I must take exception in _law_ to the _judicial_ validity of the nomination of a Regent. A popular Assembly, legitimately elected, has most certainly the right of declaring that the people represented by it intends to choose for its Prince the monarch of another State, and intends to identify itself with that State. But after this decision has been arrived at, the logical and legal order of things would be to address that Prince, in order to ascertain whether he is willing to accept this free and spontaneous surrender. If he accept, he alone can and in fact must nominate an authority to govern the annexed provinces provisionally in his name. The Assembly cannot do this, because, in proclaiming a new Prince, it invests him with the sovereign power. Victor Emmanuel proceeded in this way with the Lombards, who submitted to him of their own free will—that is to say, he nominated a Governor to rule in his name, neither did he act otherwise towards the people from whom he accepted the dictatorship. The only exception to this rule is when it is _physically_ impossible for the Prince who has been proclaimed to speak his mind. It is not so in our case, because the King of Piedmont reigns both by right and in deed, and is personally free. He is, moreover, at the head of an army, and has made himself a champion of the war of independence. It is, therefore, necessary to address him. He is not only able, but is bound to declare himself openly, and in accepting he will be obliged to provide a government for those provinces until an European Congress recognizes the fact as accomplished, and includes him in the new public statute. Most assuredly no one will ever assert that the Congress ought to _compel_ Victor Emmanuel to accept the