counteracted their policy.
The result was a revolution--not against the pope's ecclesiastical,
but solely against his temporal, authority. Scenes of the most dreadful
nature followed, all of which might have been averted by an honest
course on the part of the pontiff, and the college of cardinals.
The pope was really willing to concede much; but the demand that the
temporal government of the people should be by and for the people,
he was not willing to admit; and by covertly attempting to destroy or
counteract all that he publicly and ostensibly admitted, he filled the
people with incurable resentment against those who surrounded him,
and to whom they attributed, rather than to himself, the faithless and
despotic policy in secret pursued. A chamber of deputies was convoked,
to whom the pope formally surrendered his government, declining to take
any part in their doings, or to afford any sanction. Several of the
high ecclesiastics and lay authorities, by whose agency he sought to
counteract the efforts for constitutional liberty which the people
made, were slain, and others driven from Rome. At last, on the 24th of
November, he disguised himself as a livery servant in attendance upon
the Bavarian ambassador, and mounting the box of that gentleman's
carriage, beside his coachman, was driven to the house of the Bavarian
embassy; thence, disguised as the chaplain to the embassy, he succeeded
in escaping to Gaeta, a town within the Neapolitan territory. The flight
of the pope was followed by a protest on his part against the liberalism
of his people, who organised a regular government on liberal principles;
their efforts were counteracted by the spies and agents of the pope,
and the embassies of all the Roman Catholic powers: among the foreign
representatives, none was more hostile to the incipient liberties of
Rome than the ambassador of the French republic.

The pope, the kasir, the king of Naples, and the despots of the smaller
Italian states, considered that England was the chief fomenter of
Italian disturbance. This arose from one of those whig _mal apropos_
movements for which their party had of late years earned a bad
reputation. Lord Minto was dispatched to Italy in a semi-official
capacity; the real object of his mission was to open diplomatic
relations with the pope, who, although very desirous to respond to the
wishes of the English Whigs, thought it a good opportunity to extort
some concessions as to the interest