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It appears more credible that an old man's memory is at fault than that a letter, so colossally insolent, was actually written. Menabrea, and even the King, may have feared that something of the kind was in the mind of the Emperor. As after Aspromonte so after Mentana; Garibaldi was confined in the fortress of Varignano, on the bay of Spezia. A few weeks later he was released and sent to Caprera.
Personally he was perfectly free; no conditions were imposed; but nine men-of-war were despatched to the island to sweep the seas of erratic heroes. In spite of which, Garibaldi escaped in a canoe on the 14th of October. That night, between sundown and moonrise, there was only one hour's dark, but it sufficed the fugitive to make good his passage from Caprera to the island of Maddalena.
The first act of the conquerors in the half-ruined town was to attend a mass for the repose of the souls of the brave men, friends and foes, who had fallen during the siege. Noisy rejoicings would have been unseemly, for the vanquished were fellow-countrymen. The telegram announcing the fall of Gaeta went to Caprera; Garibaldi read it, and a weight was taken off his mind.
Garibaldi and all his household, old soldiers tried and true, sought all night once upon Caprera in such a quest, in vain. If he could only have awakened his brother Stefan to ask him which way they had gone! but then, to be sure, he remembered, Stefan must have told that to all those who had been looking for the lambs from sunset to nightfall. All alone he began the ascent.
For the privilege of being here today, in this place, expressing what we think, we are under special obligations to one man, and the entire world of progress is under obligation to this man and that man is Garibaldi. Garibaldi passed peacefully away at his beloved Caprera in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-two, aged seventy-five, gently ministered to by his children and grandchildren.
Not succeeding very well in making candles, Garibaldi went again to South America, and became captain of a trading-vessel plying between China and Peru, and then again of a vessel between New York and England. In 1854 he was once more in Genoa, and after cruising about the Mediterranean, he had amassed money enough to buy a portion of the island of Caprera, where he found a resting-place.
And Orlando was there when the dictator, abdicating power, signed the decree which annexed the Two Sicilies to the Crown of Italy; even as subsequently he took part in that forlorn attempt on Rome, when the rageful cry was "Rome or Death!" an attempt which came to a tragic issue at Aspromonte, when the little army was dispersed by the Italian troops, and Garibaldi, wounded, was taken prisoner, and sent back to the solitude of his island of Caprera, where he became but a fisherman and a tiller of the rocky soil.*
Whatever defects may be found in the character or judgment of this heroic patriot, his name will assuredly be held in grateful remembrance wherever men are found who love freedom and rejoice as they see its blessings spread more and more among the nations of the earth. As Garibaldi retired to his quiet abode in Caprera, Victor Emmanuel returned to his duties in Turin.
Before us was a most extensive view of the Mediterranean, with the isles of Gorgona, Caprera, Elba, and Corsica in sight. All around us was a wilderness of barren soil with stunted trees, moulded into grotesque and fantastic forms by the cutting S.W. gales.
Italy seemed hopelessly under the yoke of her enemies, and Garibaldi settled down to private life on the Island of Caprera, where he lived simply as a farmer. He was only too ready, however, to respond if another demand should come for him to carry arms in behalf of United Italy, and through the skill of the statesman, Cavour, such a demand did come in the year 1859.
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