Your Lordship’s letter refers to three very distinct topics. First, the conduct of the Liberals; second, that of the King and his Government; third, that of the Courts of Law. With respect to the first point, I shall not trouble your Lordship with many observations. If it be true that the people had no reason to be dissatisfied; if it be true that in Sicily, for instance, they were guilty of the atrocities laid at their door; if the chambers of representatives were formed out of needy lawyers and brawling demagogues, how is it, my Lord, that the Government which has always been strong and despotic has not produced better results? Whose fault is it that people don’t know when they ought to be satisfied, that when they can they are cruel, ferocious, and all that, that needy lawyers and demagogues carry the day?... I hope, my dear Lord, that a passage in your letter is misunderstood by me. Your Lordship seems to think that it was owing to the leniency of the Government that the Liberals did all the alleged mischief, and that, by shedding of blood, better results would have been obtained. If so, I beg to differ entirely from your Lordship. I am not one of those squeamish sort of persons who faint at the mention of punishment of death, even for political crimes; but assuredly the Neapolitan Government has never been accused of weakness on that score. I believe there have been more people put to death in the two Sicilies for political crimes since the French Revolution in 1789 began than in any other country in the world, France excepted. In Spain civil war has raged for so many years that it is impossible to draw a comparison. But in no part of Germany or of the North, of course not in England, nor even in other parts of Italy, has blood been shed more recklessly, more cruelly, or more remorselessly than in the kingdom of the two Sicilies. And what is the result, I ask once more? Oh, my Lord, that blood letting is a terrible and dangerous remedy!... It is a game at which two may play, and if Kings are too ready to put to death, they may teach republicans the same readiness....