ono? Were we to put this
interrogatory to the Pope, he would reply, I doubt not, as did another
celebrated personage in history, "Am I my brother's keeper?" But ah!
might not the same response as of old be made to this disclaimer, "The
voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground?" Again we
say, Where are your subjects, Pio Nono? Ask any Roman, and he will tell
you where these men are. Ask our own consul, Mr Freeborn, and he will
tell you where they are. They are, those of them that have not been
shot, rotting at this hour at the bottom of the Pope's dungeons. That is
where they are.

There is a singular unanimity in Rome amongst all parties, as to the
number of political prisoners now under confinement. This I had many
opportunities of testing. I met a Roman one evening in a book-shop, and,
after a rather lengthened conversation, I said to him, "Can you tell me
how many prisoners there are at present in the Roman States?" "No," he
replied, "I cannot." "But," I rejoined, "have you no idea of their
number?" He solemnly said, "God only knows." I pressed him yet farther,
when he stated, that the common estimate, which he believed to be not
above the truth, rather under, was, that there were not fewer than
thirty thousand political prisoners in the various fortresses and
dungeons of the Papal States. Thirty thousand was the estimate of Mr
Freeborn. Thirty thousand was the estimate of Mr Stewart, who, mingling
with the Romans, knew well the prevailing opinion. Of course, precise
accuracy is unattainable in such a case. No one ever counted these
prisoners. No list of them is kept,--none that is open to the public eye
at least; but it is well known, that there is scarce a family in Rome
which does not mourn some of its members lost to it, and scarce an
individual who has not an acquaintance in prison; and I have little
doubt that the Roman estimate is not far from the truth, and that it is
just as likely to be below as above it. When I was in Rome, all the
jails in the city were crowded. The cells in the Castle of St
Angelo,--those subterranean dungeons where day never dawned, and where
the captive's groan can never reach a human ear,--were filled. All the
great fortresses throughout the country,--the vast ranges of
galley-prisons at Civita Vecchia, the fortress of Ancona, the castle of
Bologna, the fortress of Ferrara, and hundreds of minor prisons over the
country,--all were filled,--filled, do I say! they wer