It might possibly have come to pass, had foreign powers possessed more satisfactory relations with one another at this time, that better order would, under the pressure of external suasion, have been maintained in the Government of more than one Italian State. The “Spanish Marriages” had created a coolness between France and England, and M. Guizot’s foreign policy had thrown France, so far as regarded Italy, into the arms of Austria and the reactionary party. The prospect of establishing civil and religious liberty in the Peninsula looked extremely obscure. The clamouring for reform, however, continued, intermittently throughout Italy. In Tuscany there appeared a speck of light in the surrounding darkness: for, urged by his people the Grand Duke had shown himself nothing loth to grant reforms demanded of him. In Rome meetings and demonstrations were frequent. Amidst all this Ferdinand remained unmoved, notwithstanding the importunate entreaties of the emissaries of Louis-Philippe, the Duke D’Aumale, and Prince de Joinville. In fact his Majesty plainly and deliberately gave them to understand that their presence in his kingdom was undesirable. Liberty of the Press being excluded from the King’s Dominions, its place was filled by the usual substitute, the issue of anonymous pamphlets; amongst many others, was one entitled _Protesto del Popolo delle due Sicilie_, from the pen of the celebrated Luigi Settembrini. This work, which was immediately seized, contained a long and detailed account of the cruelties inflicted during so many years by the Neapolitan Government on its hapless subjects. A copy of the pamphlet reached the hands of Ferdinand, who determined that no pains should be spared to discover its author. Suspicion fell on many of the leading Liberals, who were consequently imprisoned, amongst them Carlo Poerio, Mariano d’Ayala, Domenico Mauro, and others. Banishment was the sentence of those who could not be seized, and amongst them was Settembrini, who escaping to Malta, no sooner found himself on safe ground, than he avowed himself as author of the pamphlet. Meanwhile Calabria and Sicily were in a state of fermentation, and the King perplexed by the general condition of affairs, was induced to grant a general amnesty. The North of Italy was at that time in calmer and happier circumstances. Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, had consented to measures of Liberal Reform, and certain influential northern Italians, headed by Counts Mammiani and Balbo, Massimo d’Azeglio, Cavour and Silvio Pellico, had petitioned Ferdinand II. to make concessions similar to those they enjoyed in their kingdom, but without avail. Nor was England wanting in sympathy with the suffering, for Lord Minto, by direction of Lord Palmerston, had arrived from the North of Italy, at Naples, on an intercessory mission to the King in behalf of his people.