Untitled article | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, November 5, 1867

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 21

News and Miscellany.

Can ye not discern the Signs of the Times? Matt. xvi, 3.

—The latest dispatches from Florence throw some doubt on the reported end of the revolution. It is stated that the Italian reply to the French ultimatum has not yet been given, that Menotti Garibaldi is still in the field, and that Gen. Garibaldi has once more escaped from Caprera. We fear, however, that the French accounts of the submission of Victor Emanuel to Louis Napoleon will be found to be substantially correct. They are confirmed by the report that Ratazzi has resigned and has been succeeded by Gen. Menabrea, who, more than any other prominent statesman of Italy, represents the interests of the Temporal Power.—N. Y. Tribune.

—THE particulars of the recent storm on the Texan frontier prove it to have been a most appalling one. Twenty-six persons were killed at Matamoras, and ten killed and one wounded at Brownsville. In other places the loss of life is not known. Great distress prevails, 1,500 houses having been blown down at Matamoras. The jail at Brownsville was destroyed and all the prisoners liberated.

The Roman Revolution.—The threats of France have obtained the desired object. The Italian Government, after hesitating a while whether to stand up firmly for the outraged honor of the nation, or cowardly to acknowledge the supremacy of France, has chosen the latter course. It has given to Louis Napoleon positive pledges that the people of the Papal States shall be kept subject to the Temporal Power, though they should unanimously protest against it; that the Italian unity shall not be consummated, and all the commands of France shall be faithfully executed. Thus the hopes of the patriots have for the present been dashed to pieces, and, finding it impossible to continue their present enterprise in view of the unlooked-for attitude of the Government, the insurgent forces have evacuated the Papal territory.

For the present the Roman revolution seems to be at an end, but the idea of establishing the national unity of Italy is not on that account abandoned. We shall soon hear of another plan of campaign. The present Government has cruelly disappointed the Party of Action. Garibaldi and his friends thought that the Government, in its servility toward France, would not do more than required to do by the September Convention, and that, in the case of an insurrection in the Papal States, the Government itself would observe a neutral position, and would keep off the intervention of other powers. The King and Ratazzi evidently wished to pursue precisely this course, and seem, for some time, to have seriously meditated it. But when the hour of final decision arrived, the courage of the Government failed, and the demand of France was submitted to. With such a Government, the Party of Action will probably think no headway can be made. Garibaldi, in his last proclamation, declared Ratazzi to be a disgrace to the nation. Ricciotti Garibaldi, the second son of the Liberator, in an address delivered recently to an English meeting, declared that his father made a mistake in calling Victor Emanuel the Re Galantuomo. This feeling is likely to spread. Italy wants Rome, if possible, in co-operation with the National Government; but if the National Government refuses co-operation, then in spite of it.

The French Government has achieved a triumph; but there are triumphs which, if repeated, destroy the victor. The victory over the Italian Government may prove to be of this kind. Henceforth, France, instead of Austria, is the mortal enemy of the Italian people. There has already been a riot against the diplomatic representative of France in Naples, and it seems likely that other riots of the same character may follow. It can certainly not be to the advantage of France to have two nations, like Prussia and Italy, chafing under a yoke which France tries to fasten upon them.

Rome, France and Italy.

THE French fleet has sailed from Toulon to Italian waters. The French Minister has expressed the wish and the hope that peace will not be broken, and that the affairs at Rome may be adjusted without war. The world knows the value of diplomatic declarations. As the case stands at present, Italy is unable to repress the Revolutionists, who have reached the very walls of Rome, and who are in strength sufficient to overwhelm any force of the Papal Government. It is now a race between Garibaldi and the French as to which will reach Rome first. The Italian Government is disorganized. The king is embarrassed by his treaty stipulations. He is bound to protect Rome from invasion, but his army and his people all sympathize with the Revolutionists. The royal troops will not fire on their countrymen, and Garibaldi has all the volunteers he can provide for. No ministry wants to violate treaty obligations, and no one wants to oppose the will of the people. The consequence is that Victor Emanuel's Government is at a stand still—does nothing, and Garibaldi and the French will have to fight it out.

There is a strong probability that the interference of France will compel the Italian Government to choose between war with Napoleon or revolution at home, and in either case the interference of other powers and a general war are within the range of probabilities.

The attempt by Napoleon to uphold the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, by force, against the wishes of Italy and the rest of the Christian world, is a hopeless one. If he would use his present interference to induce the Pope to abdicate now, or at a certain day, with such guarantees as to property and spiritual freedom, he would protect the Papacy from that violence and disorder which will inevitably ensue from its overthrow by insurrection.—Chicago Tribune.