overnment. The Neapolitan envoy in London in his turn
requested him also to send fifteen copies of the pamphlet that had been
got up on the other side. Palmerston promptly, and in his most
characteristic style, vindicated Mr. Gladstone against the charges of
overstatement and hostile intention; warned the Neapolitan government of
the violent revolution that long-continued and widespread injustice
would assuredly bring upon them; hoped that they might have set to work
to correct the manifold and grave abuses to which their attention had
been drawn; and flatly refused to have anything to do with an official
pamphlet 'consisting of a flimsy tissue of bare assertions and reckless
denials, mixed up with coarse ribaldry and commonplace abuse.' This was
the kind of thing that gave to Lord Palmerston the best of his power
over the people of England.

ENERGETIC SYMPATHY OF PALMERSTON

In the House of Commons he spoke with no less warmth. Though he had not
felt it his duty, he said, to make representations at Naples on a matter
relating to internal affairs, he thought Mr. Gladstone had done himself
great honour. Instead of seeking amusements, diving into volcanoes and
exploring excavated cities, he had visited prisons, descended into
dungeons, examined cases of the victims of illegality and injustice, and
had then sought to rouse the public opinion of Europe. It was because he
concurred in this opinion that he had circulated the pamphlet, in the
hope that the European courts might use their influence.[249] As Lord
Aberdeen told Madame de Lieven, Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet by the
extraordinary sensation it had created among men of all parties had
given a great practical triumph to Palmerston and the foreign office.

The immediate effect of Mr. Gladstone's appeal was an aggravation of
prison rigour. Panizzi was convinced that the king did not know of all
the iniquities exposed by Mr. Gladstone. At the close of 1851 he
obtained an interview with Ferdinand, and for twenty minutes spoke of
Poerio, Settembrini and the condition of the prisons. The king suddenly
cut short the interview, saying, _Addio, terribile Panizzi_.[250] Faint
streaks of light from the outside world pierced the gloom of the
dungeons. As time went on, a lady contrived to smuggle in a few pages of
Mr. Gladstone's first Letter; and in 1854 the martyrs heard vaguely of
the action of Cavour. But it was not until 1859 that the tyrant, fearing
the cry o