hut. The few
devoted followers who were with him were strangely impressed by that
midnight watch; the moon shining on the forest, the shepherds' dogs
howling in the mountain silence, and their chief lying wounded, it
might be to death, in the name of the King to whom he had given this
land.

Next day, in a litter sheltered from the sun with branches of wild
laurel, Garibaldi was carried down the steep rocks to Scilla, whence
he was conveyed by sea to the fort of Varignano. It was not till after
months of acute suffering, borne with a gentleness that made the
doctors say: 'This man is not a soldier, but a saint,' that, through
the skill of the French surgeon, Nelaton, the position of the ball was
determined, and its extraction rendered possible.

A general amnesty issued on the occasion of the marriage of the King's
second daughter with the King of Portugal relieved the Government of
having to decide whether Garibaldi was to be tried, and if so, what
for; but the unpopularity into which the ministry had fallen could not
be so easily dissipated. The Minister of Foreign Affairs (Durando)
published a note in which it was stated that Garibaldi had only
attempted to realise, in an irregular way, the desire of the whole
nation, and that, although he had been checked, the tension of the
situation was such that it could not be indefinitely prolonged. This
was true, but it hardly improved the case for the Government. In Latin
countries, ministers do not cling to power; as soon as the wind blows
against them, they resign to give the public time to forget their
faults, and to become dissatisfied with their political rivals.
Usually a very short time is required. Therefore, forestalling a vote
of censure in the Chambers, where he had never yet had a real
majority, Rattazzi resigned office with a parting homily in which he
claimed to have saved the national institutions.

The administration which followed contained the well-known names of
Farini, Minghetti, Pasolini, Peruzzi, Delia Rovere, Menabrea. When
Farini's fatal illness set in, Minghetti replaced him as Prime
Minister, and Visconti Venosta took the Foreign Office. They found the
country in a lamentable state, embittered by Aspromonte, still
infected with brigandage, and suffering from an increasing deficit,
coupled with a diminishing revenue. The administrative and financial
unification of Italy, still far from complete, presented the gravest
difficulties. The political as